Ife^zfe 


Presente 


Date  rec 


No. 


Li 


From  nn   Ac\ 


Section  11 
books  issued 
Legislature,  i 
If  any  persor 
he  shall  forfi 
three  times  tl 
warrant  in   f; 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

California  "^tate  Library 


tf 


rary, 


if  all 

('  the 
siou. 
rary, 
rary, 
his 
this 


State,  fur  his  per  diem,  allowance,  or  salary,  he  shall  be  satisfied  that 
such  member  or  officer  has  returned  all  books  taken  nut  of  the  Library  by 
him,  and  has  settled  all  accounts  for  injuring  such  books  or  otherwise. 

Sec.  15.  Books  may  be  taken  from  the  Librarj  by  "  -nembers  of  the 
Legislature  and  its  officers  during  the  session  of  the  same,  and  at  any 
time  by  the  Governor  and  the  officers  of  the  Executive  Department  of 
this  State  who  are  required  to  keep  their  offices  at  the  seat  of  government, 
the  Justices  of  the  Supreme  Court,  the  Attorney-General  and  the  Trustees 
'j\J    of  the  Library. 

5^ — J* — I^Z 


TOM  PIPPIN'S  WEDDING. 

J\£sk**    'tyilU^i^ri   J^xJLU^  ) 
A    NOVEL. 


BY   THE  AUTHOR  OF 
"THE  FIGHT  AT  DAME  EUROPA'S  SCHOOL." 


PHILADELPHIA: 

J.    B.   LIPPINCOTT    &    CO. 

I  8  7  i . 


> iv^r 


m 

CONTENTS. 


INTRODUCTORY  CHAPTER.  page 

A  Word  about  Boy-Farming 7 

CHAPTER  II. 
Mr.  Goggs  demonstrates  his  Love  of  Boys  *7 

CHAPTER  III. 
Mr.  Goggs  converses  with  a  Reverend  Brother  .  ...       28 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Mr.  Goggs  resolves  to  keep  a  School 39 

CHAPTER  V. 
Showing  how  the  Earl  came  to  do  it 47 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Lord  Appletree  sees  his  Friends  at  Dinner 66 

CHAPTER  VII. 
Captain  Northcote  pays  a  Visit 77 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Mr.  Goggs  gives  Bread  to  the  Hungry 83 

CHAPTER  IX. 
Mr.  Goggs  keeps  Company  with  his  Pig 94 

CHAPTER  X. 

Lord  Appletree  sees  a  Friend  after  Dinner 135 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Mr.  Goggs  acknowledges  the  Receipt  of  a  Valentine  .         .     161 

('II  M'TKK   XII. 
The  Mad  Englishman  takes  a  Plunge 190 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
Coals  of  Fire 2I3 

(v) 


£>32  c  i8 


TOM    PIPPIN'S  WEDDING. 


INTRODUCTORY    CHAPTER. 

A   WORD   ABOUT   BOY-FARMING. 

A  Sensation  Novel.  Three  murders,  two  biga- 
mies, a  forgery,  and  a  theft.  A  five  days'  trial  of  the 
innocent  heroine,  found  guilty  at  last  by  twelve  pig- 
headed jurymen  of  her  country,  and  sentenced  to  death, 
amid  the  awful  stillness  of  the  Court,  by  a  mean  little 
judge  in  spectacles,  whose  voice  falters  with  suppressed 
emotion,  and  who  afterwards  gets  very  properly  extin- 
guished by  the  Home  Secretary  and  the  Author  for 
being  such  an  old  idiot  as  to  sum  up  against  the  inter- 
esting prisoner  at  the  bar. 

****** 

Two  forms  emerge  at  midnight  in  November  from 
the  dark  recesses  of  a  copse,  where  they  had  lain  con- 
cealed for  hours,  and  where  any  one  else  but  a  house- 
breaker would,  to  say  the  least,  have  caught  a  very 
severe  cold  in  the  head.  Creeping  stealthily  through 
the  tangled  brushwood,  lest  the  numerous  passers-by 
at  that  time  of  night  should  hear  the  twigs  crackle,  and 
catch  the  muffled  sound  of  their  footfall  upon  the  autumn 
leaves,  they  gain  at  length  the  threshold  of  some  lordly 

(7) 


8  A    WORD  ABOUT  BOY-FARMING. 

domain,  where  their  inevitable  accomplice,  the  butler, 
faithless  to  his  trust,  draws  back  the  well-greased  bolt 
and  lets  them  in.  But  the  master  of  the  house,  rest- 
less with  presentiment  of  some  impending  doom,  and 
seeking  a  volume  from  the  wainscoted  library  of  his 
ancestors,  to  beguile  the  weary  hour,  foils  the  guilty 
purpose  of  the  traitor  by  accosting  him  at  the  bottom 
of  the  staircase  with  a  tragical  "Ha!  what  have  we 
here?" 

****** 

The  disinherited  maiden,  stung  to  madness  with  a 
sense  of  her  cruel  wrongs,  kneels  beside  the  death-bed 
of  her  stern  papa.  He  relents  not,  but  swears  a  fearful 
oath  that  she  shall  never  possess  a  penny  of  his  wealth. 
She,  gazing  at  him  with  a  peculiar  light  in  her  dark 
eyes,  which  he  remembers  to  have  noticed  once  before, 
flits  ghostlike  across  the  chamber,  and  feels  with  her 
thumb  and  forefinger  for  a  spot  in  the  paneling  of  the 
wall.  It  yields  to  her  soft  pressure,  and  discloses  a 
secret  drawer,  with  nothing  in  it.  "Ha!"  faintly 
cries  the  dying  man,  with  something  of  triumph  in  his 
tone.  "Ha,  ha!"  responds  the  maiden,  searching  him 
through  and  through  with  her  expressive  orbs;  "ha, 
ha !  remorseless  one  !  'tis  thus,  e'en  thus,  that  I  thwart 
your  base  designs!"  In  the  inmost  recesses  of  the 
drawer  appears  to  her  practiced  eye  another  spring. 
She  touches  it,  and  lo  !  a  hidden  cavity  reveals  itself, 
from  whence  with  trembling  hand  she  snatches  the  last 
will  and  testament  of  her  unnatural  parent.  Deliber- 
ately striking  a  match,  warranted  only  to  ignite  upon 
the  box — for  the  reader  is  warned  that  every  apparently 
insignificant  detail  of  these  little  freaks  at  midnight 


A    WORD  ABOUT  BOY-FARMING.  9 

has  some  important  bearing  on  the  story — she  lights 
the  wax-candles  on  the  dressing-table,  spreads  the 
parchment  out  before  her,  erases  with  the  finely-tem- 
pered blade  of  a  penknife  the  name  of  her  brutal 
cousin  five  times  removed,  and,  taking  the  precaution 
— you  are  particularly  requested  to  observe — to  dip  her 
pen  in  the  ink,  traces  with  steady  hand  her  own  name, 
and  deposits  the  document  again  in  the  secret  drawer. 
The  dying  man  looks  on  aghast,  powerless  to  hinder 
the  unholy  deed;  and,  in  a  paroxysm  of  rage  and 
horror,  breathes  his  last.  At  that  moment  the  bedstead 
is  seen  to  rock  and  heave ;  its  curtains  are  swayed  to 
and  fro  as  if  by  some  supernatural  agency;  and  the 
cowering  maiden  has  scarcely  time  to  shriek,  when  she 
stands  face  to  face  with  the  majestic  figure  of  her  cousin 

five  times  removed. 

****** 

This  is  the  sort  of  thing  that  a  novel-writer  of  the 
present  age  is  expected  to  produce ;  and  upon  my  word, 
indulgent  reader,  I  am  not  equal  to  it.  I  am  not,  in- 
deed. A  quiet  murder  or  two  I  might  manage ;  but 
bigamies  and  forgeries  at  midnight  shock  me  exceed- 
ingly. You  will  excuse  me,  I  am  sure,  if  I  try  my 
hand  at  something  less  horrible,  but  not  on  that  ac- 
count less  true  to  life.  What  do  you  say,  now,  to  a 
little  bit  of  boy-farming?  We  have  heard  a  good  deal 
lately  about  Margaret  Waters,  and  the  helpless  little 
victims  of  her  cruelty  and  lust.  Few  British  fathers, 
certainly  not  one  single  British  mother,  felt  anything 
like  pity  for  the  wretched  woman,  when  the  news  came 
down  that  she  had  "paid  the  last  penalty  of  the  law." 
But  are  you  innocent  of  the  fact,  O  fond  mamma,  that 


IO  A    WORD  ABOUT  BOY-FARMING. 

the  dear  boy  whom  you  have  intrusted  to  the  keeping 
of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Deemon,  to  be  instructed,  bedded, 
and  boarded,  for  thirty,  forty,  fifty  pounds  a  year,  is  as 
literally  farmed  by  his  master,  and  put  out  to  grass  by 
his  mistress,  as  any  base-born  infant  in  the  sunny 
pastures  of  Holloway  or  the  Seven  Dials?  You  don't 
believe  it  ?  Very  well.  You  had  better  pay  a  visit  to 
some  private  academy  or  grammar-school,  and  see. 

How  do  you  suppose  that  schoolmasters  and  school- 
mistresses make  their  money  and  retire?  Why,  by 
stale  bread  that  the  wretched  children  cannot  chew; 
and  rancid  butter,  of  which  a  little  goes  a  surprisingly 
long  way;  and  the  nasty  parts  of  the  sheep  or  cow 
which  the  butcher  can't  get  any  one  else  to  take  off  his 
hands ;  and  a  draughty  school-room  without  a  fire  on 
a  damp  October  night,  to  save  sixpennyworth  of  coal, 
and  one  blanket  on  the  miserable  bed,  when  the  poor 
little  boy  would  have  shivered  under  three. 

"Oh,  dear,  dear,  this  is  very  dreadful !  Why,  you 
are  bringing  up  Dotheboys  Hall  over  again.  I  thought 
Nicholas  Nickleby  had  done  away  with  all  that,  long 
ago." 

Yes,  exactly.  Charles  Dickens,  all  honor  to  him, 
caricatured  the  worst  type  of  a  Yorkshire  school,  and 
public  indignation  raved  and  stormed  for  a  month  or 
two,  and  commissions  sat,  and  justices  of  the  peace 
talked  big,  and  everybody  supposed  that  we  had 
effected  some  marvelous  reform.  It  was  a  genuine 
English  proceeding.  A  great  fuss,  a  great  many  letters 
in  the  newspapers,  a  great  many  meetings,  a  great  step 
just  going  to  be  taken,  and  then — a  great  excitement 
got  up  about  something  else. 


A    WORD  ABOUT  BOY-FARMING.  IX 

Trust  me,  kind  father,  tender-hearted  mother, 
guardian  too  upright  to  do  your  young  charge  a  wrong; 
trust  me,  there  is  many  and  many  a  Dotheboys  Hall, 
where  little  bodies  are  starved  and  shrunk,  and  little 
spirits  are  broken,  still.  And,  so  long  as  you  insist 
upon  "doing  the  thing  cheap,"  so  long  will  such  insti- 
tutions thrive.  Schoolmasters  and  schoolmistresses 
must  live;  and,  considering  their  incessant  toil  and 
worry,  they  have  need  to  live  well.  Let  them  make 
their  fair  profit ;  and,  if  a  boy  cannot  be  fed  for  twelve 
shillings  a  week,  let  them  ask  fifteen.  But,  in  spite  of 
Nicholas  Nickleby  and  its  supposed  reforms,  every 
schoolmaster  who  does  not  love  his  work  devotedly  for 
its  own  sake,  and  not  for  what  he  can  get  out  of  it,  is 
a  genuine  Wackford  Squeers  ;  and  every  schoolmistress 
who  grinds  and  screws,  and  calculates  to  a  fraction  how 
much  a  head  she  can  save  per  week  by  sending  out 
small  helpings  all  round,  is  as  thorough-going  a  baby- 
farmer  as  ever  was  Mrs.  Margaret  Waters,  and  as  richly 
deserves  to  be — hanged. 

Of  course  there  is  no  palpable  cruelty.  It  would 
not  be  tolerated  now.  We  are  a  great  deal  too  refined. 
The  birch  has  become  a  mediaeval  superstition,  and  a 
boy  who  should  be  sent  home  for  the  holidays  with 
bruises  on  his  back  would  probably  be  removed.  It  is 
a  pity  there  are  no  outward  and  visible  signs  to  be 
recognized  of  wounds  inflicted  elsewhere.  It  is  a  pity 
that  there  is  no  tell-tale  register  of  the  food,  in  quality 
and  quantity  alike,  which  the  little  stomach  has  taken 
in,  and  digests  as  best  it  may.  It  is  a  pity  that  there 
can  be  no  record  kept  of  dirt  and  damp  and  neglect ; 
of  wet  feet,  endured  night  after  night,  to  save  servants 


12  A    WORD  ABOUT  BOY-FARMING. 

the  trouble  of  fetching  dry  shoes  and  socks ;  of  head- 
aches laughed  at,  and  toothaches  misbelieved  in,  and 
coughs  and  colds  left  to  cure  themselves  in  the  rain. 
Every  now  and  then  the  Register  does  tell  its  tale, 
when  some  little  fellow  catches  rheumatic  fever,  and 
dies ;  and  then  people  say  that  boys  will  be  boys,  and 
that  the  urchin  deserved  a  good  whipping  for  lying  on 
the  grass;  and  the  corpse  goes  home  to  its  mother, 
and  the  young  brothers  and  sisters  throw  flowers  into 
the  grave ;  and  the  Reverend  Mr.  Deemon  preaches  a 
funeral  sermon  in  the  school  chapel,  and  weeps  the 
tears  of  a  hypocrite  over  the  loss  of  his  boy,  and  the 
tears  of  a  schoolmaster  over  the  loss  of  his  fifty  pounds 
a  year.  There  is  another  Record,  too,  of  all  these 
things,  kept  somewhere  else,  which  has  yet  to  be  dis- 
closed ;  and,  when  the  accounts  of  that  Book  are 
balanced,  few  of  us  would  like  to  change  places  with 
the  Reverend  Mr.  Deemon. 

It  is  not  of  the  slightest  use,  O  green,  very  green,  papa, 
to  come  and  visit  your  dear  boy  at  school  after  three 
weeks'  notice  of  your  arrival.  You  may  save  yourself 
the  trouble  of  such  an  inspection  as  that,  for  there  will 
be  nothing  to  inspect.  Everything  will  be  just  as  it 
should  be.  The  boys  will  have  a  good  dinner  that 
day,  and  look  their  happiest  as  the  unwonted  dainties 
are  carried  round.  The  schoolmaster  will  have  washed 
his  hands  and  changed  his  school-coat ;  and  the  school- 
mistress will  smile  with  motherly  affection,  and  wear  a 
nice  clean  collar.  You  will  think  what  a  very  pre- 
possessing couple  they  are.  But  just  drop  in  upon 
them  some  day  unawares,  and  ask  for  a  bit  of  luncheon 
in  the  dining-hall  with  the  boys.     Oh,  no — they  could 


A    WORD  ABOUT  BOY-FARMING.  13 

not  think  of  it.  The  room  has  just  been  painted,  and 
it  smells ;  or  there  is  something  the  matter  with  the 
stove.  They  are  quite  ashamed  to  let  you  see  it ;  but 
you  shall  have  a  sandwich  in  the  parlor,  and  join  the 
boys  presently.  A  very  simple-minded  gentleman,  on 
such  occasions,  is  the  British  father.  He  believes  im- 
plicitly any  humbug  which  the  schoolmaster  pleases  to 
talk  in  praise  of  his  establishment ;  but,  if  the  boy's 
account  should  be  somewhat  different,  the  fond  parent 
becomes  suddenly  incredulous,  and  thinks  it  only 
natural  that  children  should  abuse  their  teachers.  Why 
is  it  natural  ?  Who  made  it  natural  ?  The  fact  is,  it 
is  natural  for  boys  to  praise  those  who  are  kind  to 
them,  and  to  abuse  those  who  bully  them ;  and  much 
more  natural  for  the  boy  to  tell  the  plain  truth,  and 
say  whether  he  is  treated  well  or  ill,  than  for  the  boy- 
farmer  to  tell  the  plain  truth,  when  less  than  half  the 
truth  would  empty  his  school.  Natural,  indeed  !  why, 
the  only  opinion  about  a  school  worth  having  is  the 
opinion  of  the  boys.  What  do  Inspectors  know  about 
it,  who  come  at  stated  intervals,  and  find  everything 
in  apple-pie  order?  What  do  public  Examiners  know 
about  it,  for  whom  each  form  has  been  crammed  with 
half  a  hundred  dates  and  facts?  Examiners,  nine- 
tenths  of  whom  are  so  frightfully  nervous  over  their 
work  that  they  have  scarcely  the  pluck  to  put  a  straight- 
forward question  before  a  good  big  class  of  boys,  much 
less  to  offend  the  master  by  making  an  unfavorable  re- 
port of  his  school?  "  Highly  satisfactory,  showing  a 
decided  improvement  since  midsummer."  This  is  the 
stereotyped  Christmas  verdict.  Who  ever  heard  of  an 
Inspector  or  an  Examiner  daring  to  depart  from  it? 


l4  A    WORD  ABOUT  BOY-FARMING. 

Let  these  gentlemen  look  in  some  day  without  notice, 
and  watch  the  master  hearing  his  form.  Let  them  see 
whether  he  can  make  the  boys  mind  him ;  whether  he 
can  keep  his  temper ;  whether  he  knows  how  to  teach ; 
whether  he  is  a  judge  of  character;  whether  he  does  his 
work  because  he  likes  it,  or  because  he  is  paid  for  it  at 
the  rate  of  so  much  a  head.  Let  them  find  out  what 
Mrs.  Deemon  has  got  for  dinner,  for  the  boys — and  for 
herself.  Let  them  inquire  how  much  of  their  regula- 
tion play-time  yonder  pale,  sickly  little  fellows  spend 
every  day  writing  impositions,  because  the  master  does 
not  know  how  to  make  them  learn  their  lessons  in 
school.  This  is  the  way  to  examine  and  inspect;  but, 
of  course,  this  would  not  be  dignified,  this  would  not 
be  English,  this  would  not  be  red  tape ;  and,  therefore, 
Examiners  shall  continue  to  make  their  interesting  and 
highly  valuable  reports,  and  Inspectors  to  butter  up  the 
schoolmaster. 

It  will  be  understood  that  these  observations  are 
directed,  not  against  public  schools,  for  whose  system, 
as  in  gratitude  and  duty  bound,  the  author  has  the 
highest  possible  respect ;  nor  against  any  one  school  in 
particular.  But  they  are  directed,  most  emphatically, 
against  all  schools,  whether  private  or  endowed,  wherein 
the  boys  are  at  the  mercy  of  a  brute  who  hates  them ; 
who  crams  them  up  for  examinations  to  save  his  own 
credit,  and  takes  no  real  trouble  to  make  them  learn ; 
who  cares  nothing  for  their  games  or  pleasures,  and 
thinks  the  very  sound  of  their  voices  in  the  playground 
a  bore  ;  who  drives  them  like  cattle,  and  knows  how  to 
win  neither  their  confidence  nor  their  love;  who  has 
undertaken,  for  filthy  lucre's  sake,  a  work  which  he  is 


A    WORD  ABOUT  BOY-FARMING.  15 

utterly  unfit  to  do ;  and  is  responsible  to  nobody  but 
his  own  conscience,  which  died  the  melancholy  death 
of  suffocation  several  years  ago.     They  are  directed, 
these  feeble  words  of  mine,  against  those  charming 
motherly-looking  females,  who  provide  the  dear  chil- 
dren  in   the  advertisements  with  the  comforts  of  a 
home,  and  in  the  dining-hall  with  fat  and  gristle  and 
watery  beer;  who  stroke  the  little  curly  head  when 
mamma  comes  to  see  her  boy,  and  pull  its  hair  spite- 
fully when  she  is  gone ;  who  have  no  kindlier  remedy 
for  boyish  aches  than  a  powder,  and  no  sympathy  for 
childish  troubles  more  gracious  than  a  sneer.     There 
are  hundreds  of   such  men,   and   thousands  of   such 
women,   grinding   and   squeezing  extra  fourpences  a 
week  out  of  hungry  little  stomachs,  as  unblushingly  as 
if  Dotheboys  Hall  had  never  been  painted,  and  Nich- 
olas Nickleby  had  not  been  read  by  all  the  world. 
Under  cover  of  the  admitted  fact,  that  schools  are 
better  managed  than  they  were ;  that  the  error  of  the 
present  time  runs  rather  in  the  direction  of  over-pet- 
ting than  of   ill  treatment;    and  that    young  people 
nowadays  have  a  great  deal  too  much  of  their  own  way ; 
with  popular  impressions  such  as  these  it  is  uncom- 
monly easy  for  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Deemon,  in  their  quiet 
corner,  to  administer  a  wholesome  corrective  to  the 
indulgent  spirit  of  the  age.     The  theory  that  "boys 
are  all  the  better  for  roughing  it,"  is  a  highly  con- 
venient theory,  when  you  propose  to  pay  for  their  edu- 
cation the  smallest  possible  amount ;    and  there  will 
always  be  plenty  of  parents  to  whom  it  is  gratifying  to 
know  that,  if  their  dear  child  should  go  every  night 
empty  to  bed,  he  is  at  any  rate  in  the  hands  of  judi- 


1 6  A    WORD  ABOUT  BOY-FARMING. 

cious  friends  who  will  never  make  him  sick  with  excess 
of  feeding. 

Should  any  schoolmaster  do  me  the  honor  to  read 
my  little  book,  I  will  trust  first  that  what  I  have  said 
may  clearly  not  apply  to  him  ;*  and  secondly,  that,  if 
it  does  apply  to  him,  he  will  be  more  disposed  to  feed 
his  boys  better,  and  treat  them  with  greater  kindness, 
than  to  abuse  my  "bad  taste,"  in  taking  the  part  of 
poor  helpless  childhood  against  that  innumerable  com- 
pany of  bullies,  whose  profession  is  boy-farming,  and 
whose  family  name  is  Squeers. 


*  To  avoid  even  the  risk  of  giving  personal  offense,  I  think  it  better 
to  say  positively,  what,  however,  I  hope  it  was  unnecessary  to  say  at 
all,  that  I  do  tiot  allude  to  any  educational  establishment  in  or  near 
Salisbury. 


MR.    GOGGS'S  LOVE    OF  BOYS.  17 


CHAPTER  II. 

MR.  GOGGS   DEMONSTRATES   HIS   LOVE   OF   BOYS. 

The  nursery  at  Slappingham  Vicarage  was  rather  a 
sight  on  a  Saturday  evening.  Five  little  brats,  from 
eight  years  old  and  downwards,  had  to  be  tubbed,  and 
scrubbed,  and  combed,  and  then  put  to  bed,  all  red 
and  shining,  that  the  maids  might  go  down-stairs  to 
supper.  And  what  with  the  combing,  and  the  scrub- 
bing, and  the  tubbing,  the  maids  might  be  said  to  have 


'&' 


fairly  earned  the  best  supper  that  could  be  provided  for 
them.  It  was  a  terrific  business.  "Master  Johnny, 
just  you  put  down  them  snuffers,  else  I'll  acquaint  your 
pa."  "  Now,  Freddy,  wherever  'ave  you  laid  the  soap 
to?  you've  been  and  left  it  in  the  biling  water,  I  do 
declare,  till  it's  as  white  as  that  there  counterpin,  you 
good-for-nothing  wasteful  boy  !"  "And  what  are  you 
two  whispering  about,  I  should  like  to  know  ?"  Such 
is  a  specimen  of  nurse's  troubles  on  a  Saturday  even- 
ing about  eight  o'clo<  k  ;  and  she  was  not  generally  left 
very  long  in  doubt  as  to  the  subject  on  which  Freddy 
and  his  brother  were  whispering.  It  was  sure  to  be 
something  of  personal  interest  to  herself.  For  the 
most  part  it  would  turn  out  to  be  some  harmless  pra<  - 
tical  joke,  hurting  nobody,  and  easily  forgiven;  but 
iillv  it  became  more  serious,  as,  for  instance, 
2 


1 8  MR.   GOGGS  DEMONSTRATES 

when  Johnny  threw  a  cake  of  yellow  soap  at  nurse's 
head,  and  smote  her  on  the  nose. 

The  first  thing  she  did  was  to  howl,  and  declare  that 
she  was  dead  :  the  next  was  to  give  palpable  proof  of 
being  alive,  by  jumping  up  and  vowing  that  she  would 
go  straight  down-stairs  and  tell  their  father  of  them. 
Which  also  she  did,  leaving  the  boys  in  darkness. 

"  I  say,  Ave  shall  catch  it,"  said  Johnny.  "We  had 
better  all  pretend  to  be  asleep." 

"I  sha'n't,"  said  Freddy;  "I  shall  put  my  trousers 
on." 

The  expediency  of  this  measure  was  so  obvious  that 
it  was  adopted  forthwith,  and  in  less  than  two  minutes 
the  boys  were  all  dressed  again. 

"  I'm  coming  !"  shouted  a  well-known  voice  on  the 
stairs ;  and  the  boys,  catching  a  certain  whizzing  sound 
in  the  distance,  whispered  one  to  another  in  fear  and 
trembling,  "He  has  got  the  spanker!"  Now  "the 
spanker"  was  a  short  and  narrow  piece  of  board,  with 
a  small  hole  at  one  end  of  it,  which  Parson  Goggs  had 
fashioned  for  the  benefit  of  his  offspring.  He  certainly 
had  got  the  spanker,  and  he  showed  pretty  evident 
signs  of  an  intention  to  use  it. 

And  then  there  was  a  scene.  An  uncommon  one, 
let  us  hope,  in  most  families ;  but  common  enough  at 
Slappingham.  The  vicar  was  a  pious  man,  and  read 
his  Bible;  that  is  to  say,  he  read  little  bits  of  it  here 
and  there  with  considerable  diligence :  and  one  of  these 
little  bits  told  him  to  beat  his  children's  sides,  so  he 
beat  them  accordingly.  There  was  another  little  bit 
somewhere,  which  told  him  to  keep  his  temper ;  but  he 
omitted  to  read  that. 


HIS  LOVE    OF  BOYS. 


19 


Little  Johnny  took  his  share  of  the  spanker  like  a  man, 
and  then  crawled  into  bed,  and  had  out  his  cry  under 
the  sheets.  Freddy  was  inclined  to  show  fight,  and 
persisted  in  catching  hold  of  the  weapon  with  his  hand 
as  it  descended,  whereupon  his  father  gave  him  a  double 
dose,  and  finally  broke  the  spanker  across  his  shoulders. 
There  was  nothing  left,  therefore,  for  Bobby  but  the 
palm  of  the  paternal  hand,  which,  however,  was  suffi- 
ciently well  accustomed  to  its  present  work  to  take  to 
it  pretty  kindly.  The  same  hand  had  been  writing  an 
unctuous  sermon  not  five  minutes  before,  all  about 
grace,  and  tenderness,  and  charity ;  but  it  was  not  on 
that  account  the  less  efficient  in  battering  little  Bobby's 
head ;  nor  did  it  leave  off  its  scriptural  chastisement 
until  it  had  caught  the  boy  a  foul  blow  on  the  face 
and  made  his  nose  bleed. 

"I'll  teach  you  to  play  tricks!"  shouted  the  vicar, 
hissing  at  the  child  through  his  teeth.  "Now,  sir,  go 
and  wipe  your  face,  and  don't  stand  blubbering  there." 
And  he  took  a  stride  towards  Bobby,  as  if  he  were 
going  to  hit  him  again  ;  upon  which  the  boy  lost  his 
balance,  and  fell  off  his  bed  with  a  heavy  thump  on  the 
floor. 

"Why  does  not  he  get  up?"  whispered  oneof  the 
others.      "  Why  does  he  lie  there  so  still?" 

"Because  he  is  dead,"  said  the  other  brother; 
"and  I'll  tell  you  something,  Fred,  if  you  will  come 
closer.  If  the  policeman  finds  it  out,  papa  will  be 
hung!" 

"No,  will  he  really?"  said  Freddy;  not  by  wy  of 
disputing  his  elder  brother's  learning  in  such  matters, 
but  intimating  that   the  subject  was  not  so   painful  hut 


20  MR.   GOGGS  DEMONSTRATES 

that  he  could  endure  to  hear  it  discussed  at  greater 
length. 

But  Bobby  was  not  dead,  nor  anything  near  it.  He 
was  simply  faint,  and  half  stunned,  and  his  affectionate 
father  might  have  brought  him  round  in  a  couple  of 
minutes,  if  he  had  but  known  how.  Unfortunately, 
however,  he  did  not  know  how;  and,  for  all  the  help 
that  he  could  give,  Bobby  might  have  lain  there  for- 
ever. There  he  stood,  pale  and  shivering  with  fright, 
dangling  the  candle  in  his  left  hand,  and  spilling  the 

grease  all  over  the    floor,   and    looking    like well, 

we  won't  say  what  he  looked  like.  To  his  own  chil- 
dren, on  such  occasions,  his  visage  was  apt  to  suggest 
comparisons  more  striking  than  complimentary.  "T 
should  like  to  know,"  they  would  say,  "what  old  Bogie 
can  be  like,  if  he  is  not  like  papa?" 

"Bobby,  my  boy,  are  you  hurt?"  said  the  vicar, 
at  last,  holding  the  candle  down  to  the  child's  face.  It 
was  as  pale  as  his  own,  and  streaked  with  blood.  The 
eyes  were  shut,  the  mouth  half  open,  and  the  back  of 
the  head  jammed  in  between  the  wall  and  a  projecting 
knob  of  the  iron  bedstead.  It  was  not  altogether  a 
pleasant  sight  for  a  father  to  look  upon. 

"Are  you  hurt,  my  boy?"  he  said  again,  whining 
out  the  question  as  if  he  were  the  most  affectionate  of 
parents.  He  did  not  dare  to  touch  him.  He  was  but 
a  clumsy  sort  of  bully.  He  had  knocked  his  boy  down, 
but  he  had  not  the  faintest  notion  how  to  pick  him  up 
again.  This  kind  office  therefore  had  to  be  performed 
by  the  under-nurse,  who  had  been  washing  the  little 
girls  in  the  next  room,  and  who  now  came  to  the  rescue 
with  a  mug  of  cold  water. 


HIS  LOVE    OF  BOYS. 


21 


"  He'll  be  better  directly,"  said  Jemima  Ann,  taking 
up  the  boy  in  her  strong  fat  arms,  and  laying  him  on 
the  bed.  And  then  the  vicar  slunk  sheepishly  out  of 
the  room,  and  went  down  to  his  sermon. 

He  was  in  the  middle  of  a  long  quotation  from 
"Romans,"  which  neither  he  nor  any  one  else  could 
rightly  understand,  but  upon  which  he  intended  never- 
theless to  dogmatize  pretty  strongly  the  next  day,  when 
the  study  door  opened,  and  the  mistress  of  the  house 
came  into  the  room.  She  had  a  shawl  over  her  head, 
for  she  was  an  "invalid,"  and  she  found  it  necessary 
to  protect  herself  against  the  chance  of  taking  cold  as 
she  traveled  from  one  room  to  another. 

"What  was  that  noise,  my  dear?"  she  asked,  in  a 
tone  of  voice  which  would  haye  been  intensely  harsh 
and  disagreeable  had  it  not  been  so  ridiculously  feeble 
that  you  wondered  how  ever  it  got  across  the  room. 

"Only  the  boys  romping  up-stairs,  love;  there  is 
nothing  the  matter." 

"But  1  heard  something  fall,  did  I  not?" 

"Ah,  that  must  have  been  Bobby.  I  believe  he 
tripped  up,  and  tumbled  on  the  floor."  • 

Now,  if  Parson  ( i<  iggs  had  caught  any  of  his  children 
telling  a  fib,  he  would  have  proceeded  on  this  wise. 
First,  he  would  have  asked  the  child  half  a  dozen  puz- 
zling questions,  so  as  to  entrap  him  into  telling  a  good 
many  more  lies  than  he  had  meant  to  tell.  Secondly, 
he  would  have  boxed  his  ears  till  he  thought  it  scarcely 
safe  to  box  them  any  more.  Thirdly,  he  would  have 
locked  the  boy  up  in  a  dark  room  by  himself,  to  medi- 
tate upon  his  sin,  visiting  him  at  intervals  of  half  an 
hour  or  so  with  alternate  doses  of  tracts  and  hymns, 


22  MR.   GOGGS  DEMONSTRATES 

and  telling  him,  with  many  crocodile  tears  and  solemn 
shakings  of  the  head,  what  a  depraved  wretch  he  had 
shown  himself  to  be ;  while  the  depraved  wretch  him- 
self would  suck  his  fingers  in  the  corner,  and  wish  his 
father  and  all  his  tracts  and  hymns  at  the  bottom  of  the 
sea.  For  about  a  week  afterwards  the  young  sinner 
would  have  been  in  disgrace.  His  fault  would  have 
been  brought  up  against  him  on  all  occasions,  fitting  or 
otherwise ;  and  if  he  so  much  as  joined  in  play  with 
his  brothers  and  sisters  he  would  have  been  considered 
as  hardened  in  his  sin.  Such  was  the  righteous  indig- 
nation of  Parson  Goggs  when  he  heard  a  lie,  and  such 
his  highly  judicious  mode  of  dealing  with  the  liar. 

Certainly,  when  the  vicar's  boys  did  tell  lies — and  I 
am  afraid,  they  told  a  good  many — they  made  a  better 
thing  of  it  than  their  father  did.  Anybody  could  find 
him  out,  and  his  wife  found  him  out  directly.  She 
knew  by  the  very  looks  of  him  that  he  had  been  losing 
his  temper ;  and  she  knew  also  to  her  cost  that  it  was 
not  such  a  very  unusual  thing.  So  she  left  him  to  his 
Bible,  and  went  up-stairs  to  the  nursery. 

The  children  were  all  wide  awake,  and  discussing  in 
language  not  particularly  respectful  the  temper  and  dis- 
position of  their  papa.  Mrs.  Goggs,  who  always  walked 
so  softly  that  nobody  could  hear  her  coming,  listened 
for  a  few  minutes  outside  the  door ;  but,  as  she  had 
long  ago  discovered,  by  the  same  simple  method,  in 
what  light  she  and  her  husband  were  regarded  both  by 
the  servants  and  children,  nothing  that  she  heard  on 
the  present  occasion  struck  her  as  particularly  new  or 
interesting.  With  a  gentle  sigh,  therefore,  partly  no 
doubt  at  the  wickedness  of  her  boys,  and  partly  be- 


HIS  LOVE    OF  BOYS.  23 

cause  her  trouble  in  listening  had  been  so  poorly  repaid, 
she  opened  the  door. 

"You  have  quite  made  my  head  ache  with  your 
noise,"  she  said.  "Pray  what  were  you  all  talking 
about  so  loudly  as  I  came  in?" 

"Nothing,  mamma,  that  I  know  of,"  said  one  of  the 
boys  at  last. 

"  Nonsense,  child ;  it  must  have  been  something. 
Come,  sir,  tell  me  immediately,  or  I  shall  fetch  your 
papa."  And  she  took  up  her  candle  again,  as  if  she 
meant  to  go. 

"It  was  Johnny,  mamma,"  said  Freddy,  who,  when 
he  did  tell  a  fib,  made  it  a  point  of  conscience  to  tell 
a  good  one.  "He  was  saying  his  prayers  out  loud. 
He  is  always  doing  it." 

"  But  there  was  some  one  else  talking  besides  Johnny. 
I  heard  your  voice,  Freddy,  I  am  sure." 

"  Oh,  yes,  mamma,  I  was  telling  him  to  be  quiet,  be- 
cause Matthew  vi.  81  tells  us  we  ought  to  say  our 
prayers  to  ourselves.     Doesn't  it,  mamma?" 

"You  are  all  very  naughty,  wicked,  sinful  children, 
to  tell  such  dreadful  stories.  Be  silent,  sir,"  she  con- 
tinued, seeing  that  Freddy  was  about  to  draw  still  fur- 
ther on  his  powers  of  invention.  "I  will  not  hear 
another  word  from  you  ;  and  I  will  never,  never,  never 
believe  you  again.  I  know  perfectly  well  what  you 
were  talking  about,  for  I  heard  it  on  the  stairs ;  and  I 
shall  tell  your  papa  everything  when  I  go  down." 

"  Please  not  this  time,  mamma." 

"Yes,  I  shall,  Bobby;  the  very  first  thing  on  Mon- 
day morning — not  to-night,  lest  the  thought  of  your 
wickedness  should  disturb  his  mind  through  the  blessed 


24 


MR.   GOGGS  DEMONSTRATES 


Sabbath-day."  After  which  cautious  determination, 
and  having  satisfied  herself  that  none  of  Bobby's  bones 
were  broken  by  his  father's  violence,  Mrs.  Goggs  left 
the  boys  to  themselves. 

"  Come  and  kiss  me,  mamma,"  said  Freddy. 

"  No,  Freddy,  you  are  far  too  naughty  to  be  kissed. 
I  must  see  some  decided  change  of  heart  in  you  before 
I  can  love  you  anymore."  Perhaps,  on  the  whole, 
Freddy  did  not  lose  much.  An  embrace  from  such  a 
woman  might  have  given  the  poor  child  the  nightmare. 
But  though  his  mother  would  not  salute  him,  he  would 
on  no  account  omit  to  salute  his  mother ;  and  this  he 
did,  as  soon  as  her  back  was  turned,  after  a  fashion 
equally  elegant  and  expressive. 

If  any  one  thinks  this  picture  overdrawn,  I  suspect 
that  it  has  not  been  his  lot  to  meet  many  evangelical 
parsons,  with  invalid  wives,  large  families,  and  some- 
where about  £400  a  year. 

About  the  time  when  he  left  the  University  and 
"went  into  the  church,"  which  I  conceive  to  be  the 
correct  modern  phrase  for  taking  holy  orders,  young 
Goggs  was  by  no  means  a  bad  sort  of  fellow.  Without 
being  either  very  clever  or  very  wise,  he  had  that  happy 
knack  of  making  himself  generally  agreeable,  which  is 
a  talent  in  itself;  and  while  serving  his  first  curacy  at 
a  proprietary  chapel  in  London,  he  contrived  to  make 
himself  so  especially  agreeable  to  Miss  Elizabeth  Ague, 
a  young  lady  who  rented  a  thirty-shilling  seat  in  the 
gallery,  that  she  provided  him  with  bands  and  slippers 
for  three  calendar  months,  and  then  committed  herself 
and  all  her  worldly  goods  into  his  charge.  The  first 
item  in  this  important  trust  consisted  of  a  plain  mealy 


HIS  LOVE    OF  BOYS.  25 

face,  with  very  regular  lady-like  features,  and  no  ex- 
pression at  all.  The  second  was  a  sum  of  £2000  in 
the  funds,  bequeathed  to  her  by  a  pious  aunt,  on  con- 
dition that  she  attended  three  Bible  Society  meetings 
every  year,  collected  half  a  crown  a  quarter  in  penny 
subscriptions  for  the  missionaries,  and  never  married 
any  one  whose  views  were  not  in  accordance  with  2 
Timothy  iii.  19.  There  could  be  no  doubt  whatever 
about  Mr.  Goggs's  views,  so  she  married  him ;  and  he 
was  soon  afterwards  presented  by  Simeon's  trustees  to 
the  vicarage  of  Slappingham,"  in  the  diocese  of  Dump- 
lington. 

Here  he  found  out,  after  a  very  short  experience, 
that  Miss  Ague  was  not  precisely  the  wife  to  make  a 
parson  happy.  She  had  always,  according  to  her  own 
account,  "enjoyed"  bad  health;  and  she  now  became 
so  absurdly  nervous  and  hypochondriacal  as  to  settle 
down  at  last  into  that  most  selfish  and  most  useless  of 
beings,  an  invalid.  And  sorely  did  her  husband  regret 
the  day  when  she  and  her  £2000  came  into  his  posses- 
sion. For  the  incessant  whining  of  his  partner's  lan- 
guid voice — the  nuisance  of  living  in  a  house  where 
not  a  door  might  be  left  open  for  fear  of  the  draught, 
or  banged  for  fear  of  upsetting  the  mistress's  nerves; 
not  to  mention  the  difficulty  of  paying  the  butcher's 
bill,  and  of  providing  medicine  enough,  at  eighteen- 
pence  the  bottle,  to  satisfy  the  imaginary  cravings  of 
Mrs.  Goggs's  exhausted  system:  these  tilings  had  so 
worried  and  soured  the  vicar's  temper  that  any  old 
college  friend  would  scarcely  have  known  him.  And 
they  had  done  worse  than  sour  his  temper.  They  had 
made  him  a  hypocrite  and  a  humbug.     Poverty  had 


2  6  MR.  GOGGS  DEMONSTRATES 

taught  him  all  kinds  of  mean  shifts  for  making  ends 
meet.  As  his  quiver  became  full,  his  perceptions  of 
what  was  generous  and  upright  grew  less  and  less  keen. 
Stingy  contrivances  which  would  once  have  seemed  to 
him  intolerable  had  now  to  be  tolerated  every  day ; 
and  though  at  first  he  could  not  help  being  disgusted 
at  his  wife's  meanness,  he  gradually  became  reconciled 
to  her  doctrine  that  in  the  cause  of  domestic  economy 
anything  is  lawful.  And  the  principal  sufferers  from 
the  code  of  household  laws  thus  framed  were  of  course 
the  children.  Servants  will  not  be  "  put  upon"  in  the 
matter  of  beef  and  mutton.  When  supplies  fail,  they 
can  give  notice  and  go.  But  the  poor  children  had  no 
such  remedy;  so  they  munched  their  stale  bread  and 
drank  their  lukewarm  milk-and-water,  looking  forward 
to  glorious  days  when  they  should  be  grown  up,  and 
should  never  touch  bread  any  more,  but  should  devour 
huge  slices  of  cake,  spread  an  inch  thick  with  jam  and 
clotted  cream.  Meanwhile  they  were  not  without  some 
privileges,  for  occasionally  it  was  permitted  to  them  to 
come  down-stairs  to  breakfast,  and  to  watch  their  parents 
eating  kidneys  and  broiled  ham.  And  sometimes,  if 
an  egg  were  sent  in  which  would  have  been  very  nice 
and  fresh  a  few  days  before,  the  vicar  would  generously 
make  over  the  savory  morsel  to  one  of  his  boys. 
"Bobby  has  been  a  good  boy  lately,"  he  would  say, 
making  a  horrible  face  as  he  broke  the  shell,  "and  he 
shall  have  my  egg,  for  a  great  treat.  And,  Bobby,  you 
had  better  go  and  eat  it  in  the  kitchen,  for  fear  you 
should  dirty  the  clean  cloth;"  the  cloth  having  been 
washed,  as  Bobby  and  his  father  both  knew  well  enough, 
something  like  three  weeks  ago.     Such  were  some  of 


HIS  LOVE    OF  BOYS. 


27 


the  instructive  lessons  which  the  Slappingham  children 
learned  from  their  papa  and  mamma.  And  if  these 
lessons  were  remembered  and  acted  upon  in  after-life, 
we  can  scarcely  be  surprised. 

When  Mrs.  Goggs  left  the  nursery  she  rejoined  her 
husband  in  the  study,  and  sat  mending  Bobby's  socks 
until  ten  o'clock.  About  this  time  a  tray  was  brought 
in,  and  the  vicar,  having  finished  the  peroration  of  his 
sermon,  mixed  himself  a  tumbler  of  something  and 
water,  and  handed  a  wineglassful  of  the  same  com- 
pound to  his  wife.  Which  comforting  beverage  having 
been  sipped  in  silence,  the  pious  couple  retired  to  rest. 


28  MR.  GOGGS  CONVERSES    WITH 


CHAPTER    III. 

MR.  GOGGS   CONVERSES   WITH   A   REVEREND    BROTHER. 

The  next  morning  Bobby  woke  up  with  a  headache, 
and  a  feverish  pulse.  "I  don't  mean  to  lie  in  bed, 
though,"  said  Bobby  to  the  nurse,  "or  else  I  shall 
have  to  take  a  horrid  dose  of  rhubarb  and  magnesia, 
or  castor  oil."  There  was  a  considerable  amount  of 
nasty  medicine  consumed  in  the  Slappingham  nursery 
in  the  course  of  a  year.  The  air  was  dry  and  bracing, 
and  the  children's  appetites  enormous;  so  enormous 
that  an  occasional  pill  or  powder  was  found  to  be  a 
convenient  and  economical  check  upon  them.  It  was 
not  very  probable  that  Bobby  would  escape  the  inflic- 
tion ;  and  his  father  settled  the  question  for  him  by 
visiting  him  in  his  dressing-gown. 

"Well,  my  precious  boy,  how  are  you  this  bright 
Sabbath  morning?  You  know  the  hymn,  do  you  not? 
'Awake,  my  soul,  and  with  the  sun' " 

"Yes,  papa,  'Improve  each  shining  hour.'  "  But 
Bobby  was  not  permitted  to  finish  the  verse,  for  his 
affectionate  father  hit  him  a  blow  on  the  cheek  which 
left  its  red  mark  for  an  hour  or  more. 

"Oh,  papa  !"  cried  Bobby,  shrinking  away  into  the 
farthest  corner  of  his  little  bed. 

"I'll  teach  you  to  make  fun  of  the  Hymn  Book,  sir, 
that  I  will." 


A   REVEREND  BROTHER. 


29 


"But  I  thought  that  was  right,  papa,  really.  Only 
I  have  such  a  lot  of  things  to  learn  I  can't  remember 
them  all." 

"Don't  tell  me  any  more  lies,  sir,  but  put  out  your 
tongue  directly." 

This  was  not  so  very  easy,  considering  that  the  poor 
child  was  shaking  with  his  sobs.  He  did,  however, 
manage  to  get  his  tongue  out  at  last,  though  that  un- 
fortunate member  got  terribly  bitten  in  the  process. 

"There  is  nothing  the  matter  with  the  boy,"  said 
the  vicar;  "only  a  bilious  attack.  You  have  been 
eating  and  drinking  too  much,  sir,  that  is  what  it  is." 

Poor  Bobby!  it  was  little  enough,  in  the  way  of 
nice  unwholesome  things,  that  he  had  to  eat  and  drink. 
He  scarcely  knew  the  taste  of  anything  but  dry  bread, 
boiled  rice,  and  cold  mutton.  But  every  ailment  at 
Slappingham  was  set  down  as  a  bilious  attack,  so  Bobby 
swallowed  his  nauseous  poison  like  a  man,  not  even 
daring  to  make  a  face  as  he  gave  the  glass  back  to  his 
father.  And  then  the  vicar  went  down  to  shave — let 
us  hope  successfully.  Let  us  hope  that  he  did  not,  in 
a  careless  moment,  inflict  a  wound  upon  his  reverend 
chin.  Let  us  hope,  if  he  did  chance  to  do  so,  that  he 
employed  no  ejaculation  unbecoming  in  a  clergyman. 
Let  us  hope,  moreover,  supposing  that  he  had  gashed 
himself  pretty  severely,  that  his  dear  children  would 
have  been  properly  grieved. 

I  believe  that  I  should  be  thought  an  unnatural  mon- 
ster if  I  were  to  say  that  Bobby  and  his  brothers  and 
sisters  hated  the  very  sight  of  their  father  and  mother. 
But  why  they  should  be  supposed  to  love  them  is  more 
than  I  could  tell.     They  had  scarcely  ever  received 


5o  MR.  GOGGS   CONVERSES    WITH 

from  them  a  really  kind  word.  Now  and  then  there 
was  some  pretense  of  affection,  when  the  vicar  would 
put  on  a  silly,  playful  manner,  which  did  not  become 
him  in  the  least,  and  in  a  whining,  sentimental  voice 
would  call  one  of  them  his  own  precious  child,  and 
quote  a  text  of  Scripture  at  him.  But  the  precious 
child  took  all  that  for  what  it  was  worth,  knowing  that 
his  father  was  as  likely  as  not  to  fly  into  a  passion  the 
next  minute,  and  box  his  ears.  And  yet,  strange  to 
say,  Parson  Goggs  thought  himself  the  very  model  of 
an  affectionate  parent.  He  believed  that  no  one  in  the 
world  understood  the  art  of  bringing  up  children  as 
well  as  he  did.  His  discipline  was  so  admirable,  his 
boys  so  perfectly  under  command  ;  their  religious  tone 
so  high — their  acquaintance  with  the  Bible  so  exten- 
sive— their  observations  so  intelligent — their  innocence 
of  the  ways  of  the  world  so  refreshing.  The  foolish 
man  did  not  consider  how  dearly  he  paid  for  having 
his  children  under  command,  seeing  that  he  had  made 
them  afraid  of  the  very  sound  of  his  footstep,  and  de- 
stroyed forever  all  chance  of  gaining  their  confidence. 
It  never  occurred  to  him  to  ask  whether  either  they  or 
he  understood  the  meaning  of  half  the  texts  which  were 
always  at  their  tongues'  end,  apropos  of  nothing  at  all; 
nor  did  he  for  a  moment  suspect  that  their  religious 
talk  and  precocious  questions  were  all  put  on  for  a  pur- 
pose, because  the  little  rogues  were  sharp  enough  to  see 
how  to  get  the  right  side  of  their  evangelical  papa.  And 
as  for  their  innocence  of  the  ways  of  the  world,  the 
parson  forgot  that  there  are  worse  ways  than  these ; 
and  that  when  children  are  taught  deceit  both  by  pre- 
cept and  example,  and  encouraged  by  various  means  to 


A   REVEREND  BROTHER. 


31 


become  dishonest  little  humbugs,  they  are  pretty  sure 
to  find  out  for  themselves  the  very  worst  ways  that  a 
child  can  possibly  follow. 

When  the  vicar  came  into  the  breakfast-room  at 
eight  o'clock  to  read  prayers,  the  postman  was  passing 
the  window  with  the  vicarage  letter-bag  hanging  be- 
hind his  back.  But  he  was  not  allowed  to  leave  the 
bag  on  a  Sunday,  so  he  trudged  on  to  the  post-office  in 
the  village.  Parson  Goggs  was  a  rigid  observer  of  the 
Sabbath-day — at  least,  he  meant  to  be — only,  poor 
man,  he  was  always  just  a  day  too  late,  mistaking  Sun- 
day for  Saturday.  He  would  not  have  written  a  letter, 
or  opened  one,  on  a  Sunday,  for  any  consideration. 
'•  What  are  you  reading,  Bobby?"  he  would  ask,  on  a 
Sunday  evening  after  tea.  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,  papa." 
"Then  put  it  away,  my  boy.  The  Bible  on  Sunday, 
and  the  Bible  only."  Which  wise  regulation  did  not, 
I  suspect,  increase  Master  Bobby's  love  either  for  the 
Bible  or  the  Sabbath-day. 

So  the  postman  tramped  on  ;  and  at  five  o'clock  in 
the  evening  he  tramped  backed  again,  having  left  the 
parson's  letters  at  the  village  post-office;  and  the  let- 
ters were  brought  to  the  vicarage  on  Monday  morning 
by  a  small  village  maiden.  It  was  on  Monday  morn- 
ing, then,  that  the  vicar  found  out  what  an  important 
letter  he  had  missed.  "Rev.  Sir"  (said  the  letter), 
••  Mr.  Barroll  is  dangerously  ill,  and  wishes  to  see  your- 
self or  Mrs.  Goggs  immediately.  Your  obedient  ser- 
vant, John  Jones." 

Now,  Mr.  Barroll  was  Parson  Goggs's  uncle,  who 
had  lately  retired  from  the  well-known  and  highly- 
respectable  house   of   Barroll  &  Corke,    brewers,   and 


32 


MR.   COGGS   CONVERSES    WITH 


was  supposed  to  be  worth  about  forty  thousand  pounds. 
He  had  quarreled  with  his  nephew  many  years  ago, 
ever  since  the  parson  had  had  the  bad  taste  to  throw  in 
his  teeth  that  he  was  a  brewer,  and  lived  on  the  drunk- 
enness of  the  multitude.  Then  and  there  did  the  old 
gentleman  vow  that  his  relative  should  never  touch  a 
sixpence  of  his  ill-gotten  wealth,  and  he  had  hitherto 
most  religiously  kept  his  word.  But  when  the  doctor 
told  him  that  he  was  going  to  die,  he  thought  better  of 
it,  and  made  his  lawyer  write  off  at  once  for  Parson 
Goggs. 

"Is  he  not  come?"  asked  the  sick  man,  about  the 
middle  of  the  day  on  Sunday. 

"No,  sir,"  said  the  doctor.  "It  is  Sunday,  you 
know.     Perhaps  he  could  not  get  his  duty  done." 

"That  would  not  prevent  his  wife  from  coming, 
would  it,  stupid?"  growled  the  brewer,  who  had  no 
respect  for  doctors  even  in  the  hour  of  his  dissolu- 
tion. 

"Ah,  he  won't  see  me,"  muttered  the  old  man  at 
last.  "  He  won't  defile  himself  with  the  dirty  money. 
Then  it  shall  go  as  I  have  left  it,  to  Harry  Northcote. 
If  he  had  come  he  should  have  had  the  half  of  it  for 
his  trouble." 

Harry  Northcote  was  the  only  child  of  a  navy  cap- 
tain on  half  pay,  who  rented  a  small  cottage  on  Mr. 
Barroll's  estate,  and  was  distantly  related  to  the 
brewer.  As  the  captain  was  the  finest  old  fellow  liv- 
ing, and  his  child  the  very  dearest  boy  that  ever  was 
born,  the  Squire  had  seen  a  good  deal  of  them,  though 
no  one  ever  dreamed  that  he  would  make  either  of 
them  his  heir.     Indeed,   it  was  generally  understood 


A    REVEREND   BROTHER. 


33 


that  he  had  left  his  money  among  some  half  dozen 
societies,  religious  or  otherwise.  Now,  however,  Harry 
Northcote  was  to  have  it  all ;  and  when  the  old  man 
had  settled  in  his  mind  that  the  will  should  stand,  he 
lingered  yet  a  few  more  hours  and  died,  just  as  Parson 
Goggs  was  reading  for  the  twenty-fifth  time  his  unfor- 
tunate letter  and  pondering  deeply  within  himself  what 
he  could  possibly  do. 

"But  you  know,  my  dear,"  whined  Mrs.  Goggs, 
consolingly,  "if  you  had  got  the  letter  yesterday  you 
could  not  have  gone.     Think  of  Divine  service." 

"That  would  have  been  easily  managed,  my  love. 
Sims  would  have  sent  his  curate  over  from  Clayton, 
and  he  is  quite  a  right-minded  young  man,  and  an 
admirable  expounder,  as  far  as  his  light  goes." 

"Does  he  preach  the  whole  truth,  papa?"  asked 
Bobby ;  for  Bobby  was  out  of  disgrace  now,  and  was 
anxious  to  keep  on  good  terms  with  his  father. 

The  Parson  looked  hard  at  his  son  for  a  moment,  as 
if  he  were  doubtful  whether  it  were  a  hoax  or  not ;  but 
Bobby  kept  his  countenance  beautifully.  "  Precious 
boy,"  said  his  father  at  last,  gently  shaking  his  head, 
and  smiling  with  watery  eyes  at  his  first-born.  "  Come 
and  kiss  me,  dear."  So  Bobby  went  round  the  table 
to  be  kissed,  and  brought  back  with  him  by  way  of  a 
more  substantial  reward  a  piece  of  bacon  off  his  father's 
plate,  which  indeed  his  father  could  well  spare,  seeing 
that  it  had  become  perfectly  cold  during  the  reading 
of  the  letter.  But  Bobby  had  not  quite  played  out  his 
little  game  yet,  for  he  sneaked  up  to  his  mother  also, 
who  stroked  his  hair  and  kissed  him  and  filled  up  his 

3 


34 


MR.  GOGGS   CONVERSES    WITH 


mug  of  milk  and  water  with  some  nice  hot  tea.     A 
sharp  boy  was  Master  Bobby. 

And  then  Bobby  was  dismissed,  and  a  solemn  con- 
sultation was  held  in  the  breakfast-room  as  to  the  best 
plan  to  be  adopted.  It  was  but  six  miles  to  Dump- 
lington,  the  county  town.  Why  should  not  the  Parson 
get  a  lift  in  Farmer  Swede's  cart,  and  catch  the  after- 
noon train  for  Aleworth,  where  his  uncle  lived  ?  Or 
else,  better  still,  there  was  the  Rev.  Ebenezer  Slimes, 
Baptist  minister  from  Dumplington,  who,  in  compas- 
sion to  the  benighted  souls  at  Slappingham,  drove  into 
the  village  every  Saturday  evening,  and  out  again  on 
Monday.  The  red  brick  parallelogram  in  which  he 
held  forth  on  Sunday  was  crammed  to  suffocation, 
for  he  was  pious  and  painful,  and  his  vernacular  unex- 
ceptionable. "  You  bees  all  a  going  to  wrath  together," 
was  his  warning  to  sinners  who  were  irregular  in  their 
attendance  or  meager  in  their  offerings.  "You  be 
straight  on  the  road  to  glory,"  was  his  encouragement 
to  the  saints  who  rewarded  his  disinterested  labors  by 
inviting  him  to  dine.  A  drive  of  six  miles  with  such 
a  man  must  be  a  spiritual  benefit,  if  not  an  intellectual 
treat,  to  the  Vicar  of  Slappingham.  What  if  they  dif- 
fered in  some  unimportant  points  here  and  there? 
What  if  Mr.  Slimes  thought  the  three  creeds  a  fiction, 
and  the  Prayer  Book  a  device  of  the  enemy  ?  At  least 
they  had  something  in  common.  They  both  agreed 
that  the  Pope  was  Antichrist,  and  Puseyism  rank  idol- 
atry. This  bond  of  union  was  surely  of  sufficient 
strength  to  keep  them  together  for  six  miles.  And 
what  an  example  of  brotherly  love  to  the  parish  all 


A   REVEREND  BROTHER.  35 

around  to  see  the  Clergyman  and  the  Methody  driven 
along  side  by  side  ! 

Mr.  Slimes  was  only  too  happy.  It  would  be  the 
proudest  moment  of  his  life  to  be  of  any  assistance  to 
a  brother  minister.  A  drop  of  something  warm  before 
starting?  Certainly  he  would  not  object.  It  was  his 
duty  to  his  flock  to  keep  out  the  cold.  Another  drop? 
Well,  really,  if  he  might  but  have  a  sandwich  with  it 
he  thought  he  could  manage  to  take  it  down.  And  so 
at  last  they  started  ;  Mrs.  Goggs,  watching  their  de- 
parture from  the  front  door,  not  without  some  appre- 
hension as  to  the  fate  of  her  flower  borders,  and  con- 
gratulating herself  that  the  vicarage  gate,  if  they  should 
drive  up  against  it,  was  tolerably  firm  on  its  hinges. 

Decency  demands  that  a  veil  should  be  drawn  over 
the  conversation  which  then  ensued.  There  are  some 
subjects  too  solemn  to  be  played  with;  and  the  levity, 
the  coarse  flippant  impudence,  with  which  our  two 
friends  handled  sacred  things,  may  not  be  characterized 
in  these  pages,  even  to  point  a  moral  or  adorn  a  tale. 
One  has  heard  drunkards  blaspheme  and  madmen  rave; 
but  for  downright  cool  profanity,  for  simple  prostitu- 
tion of  all  that  men  and  angels  reverence,  give  me  a 
couple  of  Evangelical  ministers  talking  Scripture  during 
a  six-mile  drive. 

They  had  just  disposed,  to  their  intense  satisfaction, 
of  one  of  the  most  abstruse  mysteries  of  the  Christian 
faith,  when  the  cart  rattled  under  an  archway,  and 
round  a  sharp  corner,  and  brought  the  grand  old  towers 
of  Dumplington  Cathedral  into  view.  It  was  instruct- 
ive to  contrast  the  conduct  of  the  two  men.     The  one 


36  MR.   GOGGS   CONVERSES    WITH 

who  had  lived  in  the  ancient  city  all  his  life,  and  to 
whom  the  very  sight  of  a  gable  or  a  turret  was  an  eye- 
sore, would  scarcely  turn  his  head  to  behold  so  glaring 
a  relic  of  Popish  days;  while  the  other,  resident  six 
miles  off,   but   not  without  hope  that  some   pleasant 
cathedral  appointment  might  one  day  bring  him  nearer, 
gazed  with  equal  interest  and  admiration  at  the  noble 
group  of  buildings  before  him.     The  two  great  towers, 
stern  and  heavy  as  if  they  meant  to  stand  forever,  and 
yet  relieved  in  their  awful  grandeur  by  countless  alter- 
nations of  light  and  shade  ;  the  pinnacles,  their  golden 
crests  (lashing  in  the  sunlight,  as  if  some  bright  bird  of 
heaven  had  perched  upon  them,  and  was  clapping  his 
wings  for  joy ;  the  buttresses,  standing  out  like  giant 
watchmen,  to  guard  the  hallowed  walls  ;  the  outline,  so 
crisp  and  sharp,  and  yet  so  wondrously  irregular,  losing 
itself  in  the  intricacy  of  its  wanderings,  yet  ever  point- 
ing its  clear  mark  against  the  sky,  as  though  the  majesty 
of  the  art  would  preach  to  us,  with  our  ill-defined  prin- 
ciples and  our  narrow  minds,  "  I  will  go  hither  and 
thither  just  where  I  please,  but  wherever  I  do  go  I  will 
show  a  line."     And,  indeed,  whether  for  art  or  higher 
things  than  art,  what  preacher  half  so  eloquent?  what 
witness  half  so  uncompromising  to  the  churchmanship 
of  our  English  faith?     You  may  argue  with  lovers  of 
argument  as  fiercely  as  you  please,  but  take  one  glance 
at  your  cathedral  tower  and  the  whole  question  of  High 
Church  or  Low  Church  is  settled  for  you.     What  does 
the  building  mean  ?     Has  it  any  sense  whatever,  except 
on  the  admission  that  worship  is  to  be  rich  and  beauti- 
ful, and  not  poor  and  cold  ? 


A   REVEREND  BROTHER.  37 

"And  where  does  your  reverence  intend  to  bide?" 
asked  Mr.  Slimes,  paying  a  graceful,  and,  doubtless,  a 
highly  gratifying  tribute  to  the  validity  of  his  rival's 
ministerial  call. 

"I  generally  stop  at  the  Red  Lion;  and  as  I  may 
have  to  wait  nearly  an  hour  for  the  train,  perhaps  I  had 
better  go  there  now. ' ' 

"Expensive  'ouse,  sir;  expensive  'ouse,  werry. 
Charge  you  two  shillings  for  a  scrap  of  stewed  steak, 
and  don't  put  no  onions  round." 

"Don't  they,  really  ?" 

"No,  sir,  they  don't.  Now,  I  knows  of  a  'ouse, 
'ighly  respectable  'ouse,  too,  where  you  gets  a  plate  of 
good  'olesome  meat  and  a  tatur  for  sixpence,  stand  and 
eat  it  at  the  bar  ;  and  an  ordinary  every  Tuesday  and 
Friday  for  one  and  nine." 

"  Do  you,  indeed  ?" 

"Fact,  sir.  It's  the  Peacock,  in  Slipper  Lane,  that 
is  the  name  of  it,  sir.  And  as  I  happen  to  be  going 
there  myself,  I  shall  be  proud  to  drive  you  there.  Only 
say  you  are  a  friend  of  mine,  and  they  will  serve  you 
for  nothing  a'most.  The  'ouse  is  kept  by  my  wife's 
cousin." 

Ill-natured  people  did  say  that  Mr.  Slimes's  wife's 
cousin  aforesaid  might,  with  more  strict  adherence  to 
truth,  have  been  described  as  his  wife's  husband.  Cer- 
tain it  is  that  the  Peacock  in  Slipper  Lane  had  served 
.  the  pious  preacher  for  a  residence  during  a  long  term 
of  years,  in  the  course  of  which — so  the  common  re- 
port declared — he  had  combined,  with  considerable  ad- 
vantage to  himself,  the  offices  of  publican  and  pharisee. 


38    CONVERSES   WITH  A  REVEREND   BROTHER. 

There  was  but  little  doing  in  Dumplington  on  a  Sun- 
day; and,  for  a  family  man  with  a  serious  turn,  a  preach- 
ment in  the  country  proved  a  healthy  and  lucrative 
employment  of  the  day.  Extremes  meet,  all  the  world 
over  ;  Friar  Tuck  himself  was  no  better  than  a  bandit ; 
and  doubtless  our  friend's  eloquence  in  the  pulpit  was 
not  the  less  impressive  because  of  the  refined  character 
and  choice  languages  of  his  associates  as  he  plied  his 
weekday  trade. 


MR.   GOGGS  RESOLVES   TO  KEEP  A   SCHOOL.    39 


CHAPTER    IV. 

MR.  GOGGS  RESOLVES  TO  KEEP  A  SCHOOL. 

To  be  regaled  at  the  Peacock,  off  good  wholesome 
meat  and  potatoes,  for  nothing  a' most,  was  a  chance 
not  to  be  lost,  and  Parson  Goggs  readily  availed  him- 
self of  his  companion's  kind  offer.  On  driving  into 
the  yard,  Mr.  Slimes  made  over  the  horse  and  cart  to 
the  care  of  the  hostler,  and,  shaking  hands  with  his 
reverend  brother,  disappeared  among  the  intricate 
passages  of  the  hostelry, — intent,  probably,  on  the 
task  of  reporting  his  arrival  to  his  wife's  cousin.  The 
vicar  meanwhile  found  his  way  to  the  commercial 
room — a  dingy-looking  apartment,  furnished  with  the 
usual  number  of  horsehair  chairs,  and  fragrant  with  the 
ordinary  scent  of  stale  tobacco. 

The  waiter  who  answered  his  bell  ushered  into  the 
room  at  the  same  moment  a  tall  solemn-looking  gen- 
tleman, dressed  entirely  in  black,  with  a  hat  almost 
covered  with  crape,  and  a  crumpled  white  necktie. 
"The  black  horse,  if  you  please,  James,"  said  the 
solemn  gentleman  ;   "and  the  black  four-wheel." 

"Very  sorry,  sir,"  replied  the  waiter,  "but  they 
arc  both  out.  Seed 'em  go  early  this  morning.  There's 
none  of  'em  at  home,  sir,  except  it's  the  chestnut  mare 
with  white  stockings." 


4o  MR.   GOGGS  RESOLVES 

"James,"  said  the  solemn  gentleman,  reproachfully, 
"it  is  quite  impossible.  You  forget  that  my  journey 
to-day  will  be  a  painful  one — a  very  painful  one  in- 
deed. How  could  I  ever  drive  up  to  the  door  of  our 
lamented  friend  behind  a  chestnut  mare  with  white 
stockings?" 

"Then  I'll  be  blowed  if  there's  e'er  another,"  an- 
swered James,  rather  tired  of  the  conversation.  "  What 
for  you,  sir,  please?"  he  continued  affably,  turning 
to  Mr.  Goggs,  who  was  studying  a  county  map  upon 
the  wall. 

"I  was  wanting  some  luncheon,"  observed  Mr. 
Goggs.      "My  friend  Mr.  Slimes  mentioned " 

"Yes,  sir;  did  you  wish  to  see  the  governor,  sir? 
He's  in  the  parlor,  along  with  missis.  Oh,  I  ask  your 
pardon,  sir.  You're  the  gent  as  has  just  a  driven  in 
with  master  from  the  country.  Luncheon,  sir?  Yes, 
sir,  what  would  you  please  to  take,  sir?  There's  cold 
roast  beef,  cold  boiled  beef,  cold  ham,  ch " 

"Now  don't,  my  friend,"  interrupted  Mr.  Goggs, 
smiling  facetiously,  "  pray  don't  go  on.  I  know  what 
you  are  going  to  say.  Of  course  I  can  have  chops  or 
steaks.  But  isn't  there  anything  a  little  more  out  of 
the  common?  A  nice  slice  of  roast  mutton,  now,  and 
a  baked  potato?" 

"I'll  inquire,  sir,"  said  the  waiter,  not  very  well 
pleased  at  having  his  bill  of  fare  taken  out  of  his  mouth, 
and  proceeding  to  lay  the  cloth  for  one,  in  anticipation 
of  the  forthcoming  food. 

"  I  must  have  the  chestnut  mare,  James,"  sighed  the 
solemn  gentleman,  as  the  waiter  left  the  room,  after 
putting  upon  the  table  a  cruet-stand  with  two  legs,  a 


TO  KEEP  A   SCHOOL.  41 

two-edged  knife,  a  fork  with  the  electro-plate  very 
much  worn  away,  a  slab  of  stale  bread,  and  a  vessel 
peculiar  to  commercial  inns  and  refreshment-rooms, 
which  looked  like  a  wineglass  blown  several  sizes  too 
big,  and  turned  into  a  tumbler. 

"  Very  good,  sir,"  replied  James,  grinning.  "I'll 
tell  somebody  in  the  yard  to  bring  her  round." 

"I  fear,  sir,"  began  Mr.  Goggs,  wishing  to  be  civil 
to  the  solemn  gentleman,  "I  fear  that  by  the  dispensa- 
tion of  Providence  you  are  lamenting  the  loss  of  some 
near  relation." 

"A  very  dear  and  valued  friend,  sir,"  said  the  solemn 
gentleman,  with  a  bow,  "  but  no  relation.  It  was  im- 
possible, sir,  to  know  such  a  man  as  the  late  Mr.  Barroll, 
and  not  to  shed  tears  of  unfeigned  sorrow  at  his  loss  !" 
And  here  the  solemn  gentleman  drew  a  handkerchief 
from  his  pocket,  ready  to  catch  the  tears  of  unfeigned 
sorrow,  in  case  by  any  accident  they  should  fall. 

"Is  my  poor  uncle  dead?"  ejaculated  Mr.  Goggs. 
"Oh,  dear,  dear,  dear  !  then  I  am  too  late,  after  all !" 

"It  would  appear  so,  sir;  though  I  was  not  aware 
that  I  had  the  honor  of  addressing  a  relative  of  the 
deceased.  You  are  going  over  to  Aleworth,  I  presume, 
sir,  by  the  two  o'clock  train?" 

"Such  was  my  purpose,  D.V.,"  replied  Mr.  Goggs, 
providing  with  pious  reservation  for  all  possible  con- 
tingencies. 

"  Might  I  be  permitted,  sir,  the  melancholy  pleasure 
of  driving  you  over?  I  shall  be  starting  almost  imme- 
diately,— as  soon  as  you  have  finished  your  mutton  and 
baked  potatoes.  We  shall  reach  the  domain  of  my 
lamented  friend  and  your  revered  uncle  quite  as  soon 


42  MR.  GOGGS  RESOLVES 

as  the  tram ;  and  I  shall  enjoy — ar — the  privilege  of 
your — ar — company. ' ' 

This  was  an  offer  not  to  be  refused  ;  and  Mr.  Goggs 
accepted  it  forthwith.  In  less  than  twenty  minutes  he 
was  sitting  beside  the  solemn  gentleman  in  a  rickety 
brown  cart,  drawn  at  the  rate  of  six  miles  an  hour  by 
the  chestnut  mare  with  white  stockings. 

The  Vicar  of  Slappingham  could  not  think  what  on 
earth  the  solemn  gentleman  wanted  at  Aleworth.  He 
was  not  a  doctor  ;  certainly  not  a  parson.  Who  could 
he  possibly  be  ? 

"  Shall  you  stay  long  at  the  house?"  he  ventured  to 
ask  at  length,  when  the  chestnut  mare  with  white  stock- 
ings had  trotted  a  mile  or  two  on  the  road. 

"Back  to-night,  sir,"  said  the  solemn  gentleman, 
"as  soon  as  I  have  taken  the  requisite  dimensions." 

"Requisite  dimensions!"  repeated  his  companion. 
"What  can  you  possibly  mean?"  Surely  they  were 
not  going  to  paper  the  rooms  afresh,  when  his  uncle's 
body  was  scarcely  cold. 

"Oh,  sir,"  explained  the  solemn  gentleman,  with 
increased  solemnity,  "it  is  our  mournful  duty,  in  the 
profession  to  which  I  belong,  to  measure  the  deceased 
for  the  tabernacles  which  must  enshrine  their  mortal 
remains."  And,  as  he  spoke,  he  shifted  the  reins  to 
his  left  hand,  and  drew  a  roll  of  tape  from  his  pocket, 
looking  all  the  while  at  the  vicar  as  if  it  would  afford 
him  unmingled  satisfaction  to  lay  him  out,  and  take  his 
measure  for  a  tabernacle,  then  and  there. 

"Good  gracious!"  said  Mr.  Goggs,  shrinking  away 
from  his  new  friend  till  he  nearly  tumbled  out  of  the 
cart,  "  then  you  are  the  under " 


TO   KEEP  A    SCHOOL. 


43 


"Just  so,  sir,"  replied  the  solemn  gentleman,  "the 
undertaker.  But,"  he  added,  mercifully  smiling  as  if 
to  reassure  his  fellow-traveler,  "we  have  duties  to  the 
living,  sir,  as  well  as  to  the  dead;  and  if  at  any  time 
you  should  be  furnishing,  or  removing  goods  by  rail, 
we  shall  be  proud  to  accommodate  you,  at  a  reasonable 
charge." 

"  You  are  very  kind,"  said  Mr.  Goggs,  who  fidgeted 
on  his  seat,  and  spoke  in  monosyllables  for  the  rest  of 
the  journey.  It  was  not  very  pleasant  to  sit  for  a  drive 
of  ten  miles  beside  a  man  who  was  going  to  measure 
your  uncle  for  a  coffin  ;  and  our  poor  vicar  felt  ex- 
tremely like  a  corpse  as  the  practiced  eye  of  the  under- 
taker seemed  ever  and  again  to  turn  upon  him,  and  to 
calculate  approximately  how  many  feet  he  would  occupy 
in  the  clear. 

However,  the  drive  came  to  an  end  at  last.  The 
solemn  gentleman  took  his  measurements  and  entered 
his  instructions  in  a  little  black-edged  book,  and  the 
chestnut  mare  with  white  stockings  bore  him  safely 
home  ;  while  Mr.  Goggs,  as  was  natural  and  decent, 
remained  at  his  uncle's  house  until  the  funeral  was  over, 
and  the  distribution  of  the  forty  thousand  pounds  had 
been  made  known. 

Then  he  too  went  back  to  Dumplington ;  not  a 
blighted  man,  inasmuch  as  he  had  really  expected 
nothing;  but  certainly  a  disappointed  man,  and  most 
undoubtedly  an  injured  man.  His  im<  le's  will  was 
cruel  and  unjust;  but  we  must  do  our  vicar  the  credit 
to  declare,  that  he  of  all  men  in  the  world  was  probably 
the  least  disposed  to  quarrel  with  it.  A  legacy  would 
have  been  very  acceptable,  for  his  children's  sake  as 


44 


MR.   GOGGS  RESOLVES 


well  as  for  his  own ;  but  he  had  not  reckoned  upon  it, 
and  he  could  pay  his  bills  without  it.  Certainly,  it 
was  hard  to  have  been  expressly  summoned,  and  made 
to  act  the  part  of  chief  mourner,  and  then  to  sit  in 
the  library,  and  find  himself  passed  over,  and  hear 
others  named  as  legatees.  Certainly,  the  Vicar  of 
Slappingham,  as  he  took  his  second-class  ticket  at  the 
station  on  his  journey  home,  felt  no  consuming  love 
for  Harry  Northcote,  the  inheritor  of  his  uncle's 
wealth.  And  certainly,  when  he  remembered  what 
the  doctor  had  said  to  him  at  Aleworth,  that  half 
the  brewer's  hoard  must  surely  have  been  his,  but  for 
that  confounded  Sunday  postman,  the  father  of  a  fam- 
ily got  the  better  of  the  evangelical  minister,  and  some 
very  naughty  words  were  muttered  between  the  pious 
parson's  teeth — words  so  naughty  that,  when  he  mut- 
tered them  again  in  his  sleep  at  night,  Mrs.  Goggs 
arose  in  terror  from  his  side,  and  read  him,  in  her 
cold  sepulchral  voice,  so  many  chapters  from  the 
Revelations  of  Dr.  Cumming,  that  never,  sleeping  or 
waking,  did  the  poor  man  venture  to  forget  himself 
again. 

On  his  way  through  Dumplington  the  vicar  halted 
again  at  the  Peacock  in  Slipper  Lane,  and  refreshed 
himself  with  another  slice  of  mutton  and  a  baked 
potato.  During  his  meal  he  read  the  Dumplington 
Gazette,  in  the  columns  of  which  a  conspicuous  adver- 
tisement caught  his  eye. 

SCHOLASTIC— The  Trustees  of  the  Dumplington 
Grammar-School  require  the  services  of  a  compe- 
tent Head-Master  immediately.     Salary  £500  a  year, 


TO  KEEP  A   SCHOOL.  45 

with  a  house  for  boarders.  Must  be  a  clergyman  of 
the  Established  Church.  No  Ritualist  need  apply. 
Testimonials  to  be  sent  to  Peter  Teasel,  Esq.,  Clerk  to 
the  Trustees. 

"The  very  thing  for  me!"  said  the  vicar  to  him- 
self.    "  I'll  see  the  bishop  about  it  this  very  afternoon." 

The  bishop  gave  our  friend  an  excellent  testimonial, 
the  dean  gave  him  another,  and  half  a  dozen  influen- 
tial residents  in  Dumplington  promised  him  all  the 
assistance  in  their  power.  "  I  was  made  for  a  school- 
master, my  lord,"  said  Mr.  Goggs,  thinking  of  the 
spanker;  "and  I  am  sure  my  dear  wife  will  be  a  pat- 
tern of  motherly  kindness  to  the  boys." 

"I  am  sure  she  will,"  said  the  bishop,  who  had 
never  seen  the  lady  in  his  life;  "and  I  wish  you,  my 
dear  friend,  every  possible  success.  If  you  will  take 
my  advice,  you  will  call  on  Mr.  Teasel,  and  let  him 
know  at  once  that  you  mean  to  stand." 

Mr.  Teasel's  office  was  in  the  Close,  somewhat  to 
the  disgust  of  the  accredited  ecclesiastical  lawyer  of 
Dumplington.  But  his  business  was  purely,  or  im- 
purely, secular.  Nobody  knew  exactly  what  he  did, 
except  that  he  made  money  all  the  week,  and  reckoned 
up  his  gains  in  church  on  Sunday.  The  parson  thought 
sometimes  that  he  was  taking  notes  of  his  sermon  ;  but 
Mr.  Teasel's  neighbors  knew  better.  His  Prayer  Book 
was  covered  with  figures  in  every  page ;  and  he  had 
been  known,  in  fits  of  abstraction,  to  make  mysterious 
calculations  in  the  lining  of  his  fellow-worshiper's 
hat.  He  was  at  home  when  Mr.  Goggs  called  upon 
him ;   and  he  gave  the  reverend  gentleman  every  en- 


46    MR.   GOGGS  RESOLVES   TO   KEEP  A   SCHOOL. 

couragement  to  persevere  in  his  canvass  for  the  Head- 
Mastership  of  the  Grammar-School. 

"You  are  the  first  in  the  field,  Mr.  Goggs,"  said 
the  lawyer,  "and  I  should  think,  speaking  with  cau- 
tion, that  your  principles  would  suit  the  trustees.  They 
are  all  Dissenters,  you  know,  every  man  alive  of  them; 
and  they  would  put  in  Greasie,  the  Baptist  minister, 
in  a  moment,  if  the  statutes  would  let  them.  But  I 
really  believe  that,  next  to  Greasie,  they  would  like 
best  to  have  yau." 

Mr.  Goggs  was  just  acknowledging  in  suitable  terms 
this  most  gratifying  compliment,  when  the  door  of  the 
office  flew  open,  and  two  young  ladies,  each  orna- 
mented with  a  head  of  bright  red  hair,  raced  each 
other  into  the  room.  "Oh,  papa!"  they  both  cried 
at  once,  far  too  excited  to  be  abashed  by  the  presence 
of  a  stranger,  "have  you  heard  the  news?  What  do 
you  think?  The  old  Earl  of  Appletree  has  gone  and 
married  his  cook  /' ' 


SHOWING  HOW  THE  EARL   CAME   TO  DO  IT.    47 


CHAPTER    V. 

SHOWING   HOW   THE    EARL   CAME   TO   DO   IT. 

It  was  a  silly  thing  to  do.  There  could  be  no  doubt 
whatever  about  that.  He  might  have  had  almost  any- 
one else  he  pleased.  Half  the  girls  in  the  county 
would  have  trotted  along  with  the  dear  old  man  to  the 
nearest  parish  church,  and  married  him  at  ten  minutes' 
notice,  any  day  or  any  night,  license  or  no  license, 
banns  or  no  banns,  and  even,  if  decency  had  not  for- 
bidden it,  parson  or  no  parson.  But  he  would  not  ask 
any  one  of  them  ;  and  so  he  lived  a  bachelor  till  he 
was  sixty-five,  and  then — married  his  cook. 

It  was  a  shabby  thing  to  do.  There  could  be  no 
doubt  about  that  either.  Here  was  young  Tom  Pippin, 
the  best  fellow  in  the  world,  but,  like  many  other  best 
fellows,  as  poor  as  a  rat;  Tom  Pippin,  whom  every- 
body liked  ;  who  was  the  best  company,  the  best  shot, 
the  best  rider,  the  best  cricketer,  and  the  best  billiard- 
player  for  a  hundred  miles  round;  Tom  Pippin,  who 
was  up  to  his  ears  in  love  with  the  prettiest  girl  that 
ever  was  seen,  but  did  not  dare  talk  of  marrying  her 

till  his  uncle  was no,  till   the  title  and   property 

came  to  him,  as  he  thought  that  some  day  they  proba- 
bly might;  here  was  Tom  Pippin  with  all  his  brilliant 
prospects  clouded  over,  and  his  glorious  expectation 


48  SHOWING   HOW  THE 

of  enormous  wealth  and  high  position  reduced  to  the 
faint  glimmering  of  a  hope,  first,  that  his  dear  little 
cousin  might  never  arrive  at  all ;  secondly,  that  if  it 
did  arrive,  it  might  be — any  species  of  living  creature 
you  please  except  a  boy;  thirdly,  that  if  it  were  a 
boy  it  might  be  spared  the  misery  of  cutting  its  little 
teeth,  by  cutting  its  little  lucky  on  the  earliest  con- 
venient occasion. 

But  it  was  something  worse  than  either  of  these.  It 
was  a  nasty  thing  to  do.  People  do  silly  things  every 
day,  and  shabby  things  every  day,  and  somehow  or 
other  they  get  forgiven  ;  but  no  one  will  forgive  a  man, 
still  less  a  woman,  who  does  a  nasty  thing.  If  the  old 
earl  must  marry  a  servant,  why  could  not  he  have  taken 
little  Polly  Sanders,  the  black-eyed  maiden  at  the 
Model  Farm ;  or  even  Betty  Stokes,  the  park-keeper's 

daughter   at  the   lodge?      But  a  horrid,  fat ugh! 

what  a  taste  old  men  must  have,  to  be  sure  ! 

She  was  not  even  a  decently  good  cook.  If  she  had 
been,  one  might  have  supposed  that  her  master  was 
taken  captive  by  her  soft  allurements  in  the  region 
where  some  men  are  so  susceptible.  But  the  dinners 
down  at  Crab  Cottage,  the  little  country  place  where 
the  earl  lived  for  about  six  weeks  every  year,  and 
where  he  picked  up  his  bride,  were  never  so  well 
dressed  as  to  set  any  one  in  love  with  the  goddess  of 
the  kitchen.  Mutton  must  be  very  tender  and  very 
well  served,  if  it  is  to  feed  the  affections  as  well  as 
satisfy  the  cravings  of  hunger.  Birds  must  indeed  be 
roasted  to  a  turn,  ere  a  man  will  long  to  clasp  in 
matrimony  the  hand  that  basted  them ;  and  bread 
sauce  be  something  more  than  perfect,  which  can  make 


EARL    CAME    TO   DO   IT  49 

one  pine  to  rest  one's  head  upon  the  bosom  that  has 
throbbed  with  anxiety  lest  it  should  stay  in  the  pot  too 
long.  Possibly  Lord  Appletree  was  so  keenly  alive  to 
his  want  of  a  new  cook  that  any  means  seemed  plausi- 
ble which  might  rid  him  of  the  old  one. 

Married,  however,  they  certainly  were ;  and  when, 
three  or  four  months  after  the  wedding,  the  gentlemen 
of  the  county  had  expended  their  indignation  in 
abusing  the  old  man  for  throwing  himself  so  hopelessly 
away,  the  ladies  of  the  county  began  to  take  the  mat- 
ter up  from  their  own  peculiar  point  of  view,  and  to 
whisper  prettily  among  themselves  about  another  little 
event,  which  seemed  likely  in  due  time  to  make  a  sen- 
sation in  their  small  world. 

At  last  the  little  event  came;  and,  to  the  intense 
disgust  of  poor  Tom  Pippin,  it  turned  out  to  be  neither 
a  prehistoric  curiosity,  nor  an  undiscovered  species, 
nor  even  a  girl,  but  a  great  fat  hearty  boy,  born,  as  the 
nurse  declared,  with  a  regular  head  of  hair,  and  crow- 
ing like  a  little  game-cock  almost  before  she  could  get 
him  into  her  arms.  Here  was  a  pretty  sort  of  a  young 
viscount  to  inherit  all  the  glories  of  Dumplingshire  ! 
Half  the  acres  in  the  county  belonged  to  the  earl ; 
and  now  they  would  all  go  to  a  wretched  little  brat 
whose  mother  no  doctor's  or  parson's  wife  could  possi- 
bly receive.  It  was  enough  to  make  any  one  turn 
republican.  Landed  proprietors  and  noble  families 
were  all  very  well;  but,  if  the  aristocracy  played  such 
tricks  as  this,  we  had  better  be  without  them  ;  better 
cut  up  their  estates  into  allotments,  and  let  us  all  start 
fair,  each  man  upon  his  little  plot  of  ground.  So  thought 
the  Dumplingshire  folk,  disgusted  with  the  old  earl's 

4 


5° 


SHOWING  HOW  THE 


unpresentable  wife;  disgusted  with  his  plebeian  heir; 
and  disgusted  perhaps  most  of  all  with  the  prospect  of 
a  long  minority,  during  which  the  great  house'at  Withy- 
combe  would  be  empty,  and  the  whole  neighborhood 
dull,  while  an  already  fabulous  income  was  doubling 
itself  for  the  benefit  of  the  cook's  boy. 

The  earl,  however,  was  beside  himself  with  delight. 
He  was  a  little  man,  and  a  hideously  ugly  little  man, 
with  a  pug  nose,  and  great  thick  lips,  and  red  eyes, 
one  of  which  did  not  point  quite  true.  Why  noble 
earls  should  so  often  be  ugly,  is  a  problem  in  nature, 
seeing  that  their  fathers  and  grandfathers  for  generations 
past  must  have  had  the  pick  of  all  the  pretty  women  in 
the  kingdom.  But  certain  it  is  that,  for  one  really 
good-looking  aristocrat,  you  meet  with  half  a  dozen 
whose  appearance  is,  to  say  the  least,  so  absolutely 
commonplace,  that  if  you  did  not  see  all  the  world 
making  way  for  them,  hat  in  hand,  you  would  scarcely 
suppose  them  to  be  gentlemen.  Such  a  one  was  Lord 
Appletree.  In  his  best  days  he  might  have  driven  an 
omnibus  without  seeming  one  bit  above  his  work ;  and, 
now  that  he  was  old  and  wrinkled,  you  would  have 
thought  it  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  if  he  had 
accosted  you  at  the  corner  of  Farringdon  Street  with  a 
broom. 

How  the  old  fellow  chuckled  when  he  heard  the 
good  news !  He  was  in  town  when  it  reached  him,  at 
his  little  bachelor  establishment  in  Bolton  Street,  May 
Fair;  where  perhaps  he  was  leading  somewhat  more 
of  a  bachelor  life  than  his  buxom  countess  might  have 
approved.  But  he  vowed  eternal  gratitude  to  the  wife 
who  had  been  so  good  to  him ;  and  sent  her  down  all 


EARL    CAME    TO   DO   IT.  51 

the  presents  he  could  think  of,  by  way  of  consolation 
for  his  own  absence  at  so  interesting  a  time.  And,  as 
soon  as  ever  his  bachelor  engagements  were  fulfilled, 
he  put  himself  in  the  train,  and  hurried  down  to  Withy- 
combe,  to  superintend  in  person  the  necessary  festivi- 
ties at  the  christening  of  his  son  and  heir. 

It  was  some  disappointment  to  the  old  man,  as  he 
drew  near  home,  to  see  how  little  enthusiasm  the  great 
event  had  aroused.  Dumplington,  the  capital  of  his  own 
county,  was  just  as  quiet  and  just  as  fast  asleep  as  if  this 
lucky  young  heir  to  one  hundred  thousand  pounds  a 
year  had  never  been  born.  To  be  sure,  Dumpling- 
ton was  a  Cathedral  town,  but  the  earl  knew  very  well 
that  even  the  Close  itself  would  have  shaken  off  dull 
sloth  and  hung  out  flags  to  welcome  his  boy,  if  his  boy's 
mother  had  not  been  a  cook.  So  he  shook  his  fist  at 
the  old  Norman  towers,  and  swore  between  his  teeth 
at  the  bigotry  of  the  parsons  and  the  prejudice  of  the 
world,  and  had  himself  driven  from  the  station  out  to 
AVithvcombe  House,  without  a  hat  waved  in  his  honor, 
and  without  a  cheer.  Let  us  hope  that  the  smiles  of 
his  lady  made  it  up  to  him  when  he  reached  home. 

Lady  Appletrec  was  a  sensible  woman,  who  obsti- 
nately refused  to  eat  gruel  and  broth,  merely  because 
the  doctor  told  her  that  the  functions  of  her  ladyship's 
system  were  temporarily  deranged.  "  Stuff  and  non- 
sense, doctor!"  said  she;  "I'll  trouble  you  for  a 
mutton-chop  and  some  porter.  Deranged,  indeed! 
Just  like  your  impudence.  You  go  and  starve  a  poor 
body,  and  then  tell  her  that  she  is  deranged!"  The 
consequence  was  that  in  less  than  a  fortnight  the 
buxom  countess  was  down-stairs  again,   dining   with 


52  SHOWING  HOW  THE 

her  noble  husband  at  seven  o'clock,  and  eagerly  dis- 
cussing plans  for  the  forthcoming  festivities. 

The  question  of  sponsors  had  been  rather  a  difficult 
one  to  settle.  The  noble  relatives  of  the  great  house 
of  Pippin  were  much  too  angry  to  have  anything  to  do 
with  it ;  and  the  earl  really  began  to  think  that  he 
must  call  in  the  assistance  of  the  parish  clerk.  At  last 
he  prevailed  upon  Sir  John  Montgomery,  a  poor  Scotch 
baronet,  whom  at  sundry  times  his  lordship  had  de- 
cidedly snubbed  for  his  poverty,  to  do  the  kind  office 
for  his  son  and  heir.  The  Dumplington  doctor,  who 
was  also  a  Scotchman,  and  a  man  of  decently  good 
family,  consented  to  stand  by  the  baronet's  side;  and 
his  sister,  an  ancient  maiden,  who  lived  with  him  and 
kept  house,  completed  the  number.  The  boy  was  to 
be  called  Horatio  Adolphus  Plantagenet  Leicester 
Montgomery  Stuart ;  half  a  dozen  names  being  the 
smallest  number  to  which  the  eldest  son  of  an  earl 
could  condescend.  There  was  to  be  a  big  dinner  on 
Monday,  a  performance  of  private  theatricals  on  Tues- 
day, and  a  ball  on  Wednesday.  The  rest  of  the  week 
was  to  be  given  up  to  the  entertainment  of  the  tenants 
and  their  wives  and  families,  and  every  laborer  on  the 
estate  was  to  be  provided  with  the  means  of  making 
merry.  The  whole  thing  was  to  be  done  in  style; 
and  all  the  county  should  see  that  Lord  Appletree  was 
not  one  bit  ashamed  of  having  married  his  cook.  If 
the  great  people  did  not  choose  to  come,  let  them  stay 
away,  and  the  house  should  be  filled  with  little  people 
instead.  Not  that  the  earl  had  much  fear  about  that. 
He  had  not  lived  sixty-five  years  in  this  funny  world 
without  learning  something  about  its  funny  ways.     He 


EARL    CAME    TO  DO  IT. 


53 


knew  very  well  that  all  the  stuck-up  squires,  who  now 
made  believe  to  cut  him,  because  he  had  married  his 
cook,  would  come  running  up  to  him  like  little  dogs, 
as  soon  as  he  chose  to  whistle  for  them.  He  knew  that 
the  bishop,  who  had  politely  declined  to  christen  his 
boy,  and  the  country  parsons  who  had  followed  their 
diocesan's  apostolical  lead,  would  come  and  kneel  in  a 
row  before  him,  the  moment  they  wanted  to  ask  a 
favor.  This  was  Lord  Appletree's  philosophy;  and 
he  felt  that  he  could  afford  to  laugh,  as  he  saw  nose 
after  nose  in  Dumplingshire  turned  up  at  his  countess- 
cook. 

In  due  course,  the  great  week  arrived  ;  and  the  little 
baby  lord  was  baptized  in  Withycombe  church  on  the 
Sunday  afternoon,  in  the  presence  of  a  large  congrega- 
tion, including  the  select  family  party  assembled  for 
the  occasion  at  the  great  house.  This  party  was  very 
select,  indeed,  being  a  party  of  five,  besides  the  countess 
and  the  earl. 

Tom  Pippin  was  there,  cursing  his  ill  luck,  but  not 
daring  to  offend  his  uncle  by  refusing  to  come.  Dr. 
Stuart  was  there,  and  Miss  Stuart,  and  Sir  John  Mont- 
gomery and  Miss  Montgomery.  Now  Miss  Mont- 
gomery was  the  very  identical  prettiest  girl  that  ever 
was  seen,  with  whom  Tom  Pippin  was  up  to  his  ears 
in  love. 

And  no  wonder.  She  was  intensely  beautiful,  and 
as  good  as  gold.  Beautiful  girls  are  common  enough, 
each  one  beautiful  in  her  own  especial  style,  beautiful 
in  spite  of  some  abominably  bad  taste  in  dress,  or  some 
hideous  deformity  in  the  arrangement  of  her  hair. 
There  is  the  sparkling  beauty,  and  the  wicked  beauty, 


54 


SHOWING  HOW  THE 


and  the  sleepy  languishing  beauty,  and  the  shrinking 
modest  beauty,  and  the  cold  marble  beauty,  and  the 
thick-lipped  short-faced  winning  beauty,  which  to  most 
men  is  simply  irresistible.  All  these  are  very  well  for 
a  romp,  or  a  picnic,  or  a  flirtation,  or  a  dance,  or  to 
take  down  to  dinner.  But,  when  you  come  to  talk  of 
marrying,  there  are  better  things  than  beauty  after  all 
— things  beside  which  the  various  types  of  loveliness 
are  scarcely  worth  comparing.  Your  Phyllis  may  be  a 
heartless  coquette,  and  you  will  write  ditties  to  her 
still ;  but  your  wife  must  be  a  woman  and  a  lady. 
They  are  not  so  very  common,  either  of  them.  A  per- 
fect lady;  nice  in  all  her  tastes  and  all  her  belongings; 
with  everything  about  her  thoroughly  nice,  from  the 
crown  of  her  head  to  the  sole  of  her  foot;  so  nice  that 
nothing  of  hers  need  at  any  time  be  concealed,  but  all 
will  bear  looking  into  with  ever  so  fastidious  an  eye. 
Of  many  pretty  young  ladies  of  the  present  day  it  must 
needs  be  said  that  they  are  by  no  means  nice ;  that 
there  are  things  about  them  which  will  not  bear  look- 
ing into  at  all ;  that  their  laundress  scarcely  divides 
her  fair  share  of  profits  with  the  dressmaker;  and  that 
it  would  be  well  if  half  the  time  spent  each  morning 
in  the  elaborate  disfigurement  of  the  back  of  their 
heads  had  been  employed — must  I  say  it? — in  the  re- 
freshing application  of  soap  and  water.  A  slovenly 
man  is  bad  enough ;  but  a  slovenly  woman  is  some- 
thing too  awful  to  be  endured. 

And  she  must  be  very,  very  good ;  good-natured,  gen- 
erous and  kind;  good-hearted,  loving,  and  true;  good- 
tempered,  unsuspicious,  and  trustful.  She  must  be 
good  in  a  higher  sense  still ;  pure  and  guileless,  and 


EARL    CAME    TO  DO   IT.  55 

fearing  God;  and  if  you  can  find  such  a  woman,  never 
mind  about  her  eyelashes,  or  the  chiseling  of  her  nose, 
but  go  in  and  win  her,  and  and  you  will  have  a  wife 
indeed. 

Such  a  woman  was  Edith  Montgomery;  and  it  will 
be  readily  believed,  by  those  who  know  what  the  affec- 
tions of  most  young  men  are  worth,  that  she  was  by 
many  degrees  too  good  for  Tom  Pippin.  It  is  not  of 
much  use  to  try  and  describe  him.  Those  who  care  to 
know  what  he  was  like  may  go  into  a  club,  or  walk 
down  Pall  Mall,  or  join  any  group  of  well-dressed, 
good-looking,  empty-headed  gentlemen  of  between 
twenty  and  thirty  years  of  age,  and  any  one  of  them 
will  do  for  Tom  Pippin.  In  some  respects,  indeed,  he 
was  better  than  most,  inasmuch  as  he  really  did  excel 
in  divers  rural  sports  and  manly  games.  He  was  won- 
derfully handsome,  and  very  active  and  strong;  and  he 
had  turned  his  natural  gifts  to  so  good  an  account  as  to 
be  one  of  the  best  sportsmen  and  one  of  the  greatest 
athletes  in  his  county.  But  in  all  other  matters  he 
was  simply  a  fool ;  and  his  conversation,  whether  with 
man  or  woman,  began  with  "By  Jove"  and  ended 
with  "haw,  haw."  For  a  short  time  he  had  held  a 
commission  in  the  army;  but  after  his  father's  death 
he  sold  out,  and  lived  as  best  he  might  upon  the  ex- 
pectation of  succeeding  to  his  uncle's  title  and  estates. 
His  father  had  left  him  fifteen  thousand  pounds,  and 
hi-,  mother  about  as  much  more;  but  this  had  long  ago 
gone  to  the  Jews,  and  Tom  was  in  debt  to  any  amount 
please.  His  <  han<  e  of  the  peerage,  however,  was 
so  undeniably  safe  that  he  never  had  the  slightest  diffi- 
culty in  borrowing  ready  money;  and  it  was  popularly 


56  SHOWING  HOW  THE 

believed  in  Dumplington  that  Mr.  Teasel,  the  lawyer, 
whose  business  was  altogether  of  a  mysterious  nature, 
had  obligingly  accommodated  him  with  several  pretty 
extensive  loans.  He  had  first  met  Edith  Montgomery 
at  the  county-ball  at  Dumplington,  and  before  the  end 
of  the  season  they  were  secretly  engaged ;  secretly,  be- 
cause the  old  earl  had  very  ambitious  views  for  his 
heir,  and  would  by  no  means  have  consented  that  he, 
at  any  rate,  should  marry  his  cook.  There  was  a  Lady 
Maria  Bent,  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Dumplingshire, 
and  sister  of  the  young  Marquis  of  Crookleigh ;  and 
Lord  Appletree  thought  what  a  very  nice  thing  it  would 
be  if  the  two  families  could  be  brought  together.  The 
duke  and  the  earl  divided  the  county  between  them ; 
and,  as  the  marquis  was  a  poor,  sickly  youth,  who 
seemed  very  unlikely  to  live,  it  was  highly  probable 
that  the  fortunate  winner  of  Lady  Maria's  hand  would 
also  be  the  fortunate  possessor  of  the  Dumplingshire 
ducal  estates.  But  unluckily  Lady  Maria's  hand  was 
not  a  nice  hand  to  win.  It  was  a  large  hand,  and  a 
red  hand,  and  a  very  flabby  hand.  It  was  the  hand  of 
a  woman  prematurely  old,  with  hair  as  coarse  as  ropes, 
and  a  parting  as  broad  as  a  piece  of  good-sized  tape, 
and  an  enormous  flat  face,  the  color  of  a  swede,  and  a 
little  round  hole  for  a  mouth,  and  a  small,  pug  nose, 
and  yellow  pig's  eyes.  In  short,  Lady  Maria  was  a 
dwarf,  and  more  than  half  an  idiot ;  and  so  miserably 
deformed  that  not  all  the  lands  in  Dumplingshire,  and 
the  Scotch  and  Irish  properties  besides,  could  put  her 
into  shape  again.  The  question  with  Lord  Appletree 
was,  whether  she  had  any  need  to  be  put  into  shape 
again  ;  whether  it  would  not  be  worth  any  man's  Avhile 


EARL    CAME    TO  DO  IT. 


57 


who  wanted  money  to  take  her,  hump  and  all,  and  make 
the  best  of  it ;  and  this  question  he  had  proposed  for 
Tom  Pippin's  consideration,  one  evening  as  they  rode 
home  together  from  hunting,  a  few  weeks  before  he 
married  his  cook. 

Tom  did  not  like  it  at  all.  "  By  Jove,  you  know, 
she  is  so  deucid  short,  you  know,  and  aw  so  infernally 
ugly,  you  know,  and  aw  really " 

"  Well,  nobody  supposes  that  she  will  ever  set  up  for 
a  beauty  ;  but  what  of  that  ?  Twelve  thousand  a  year 
of  her  own,  my  boy ;  and  something  like  a  hundred 
thousand  if  young  Crookleigh  dies." 

"Vewy  dear  at  the  price,"  replied  Tom,  who  was 
thinking  of  Edith  Montgomery.  "My  dear  uncle,  I 
really  aw  could  not  think  of  it." 

"I  wish  you  would  think  of  it,  Tom,  I  do  indeed. 
You  would  feather  your  nest  uncommonly  well ;  and  I 
don't  believe  the  girl  is  such  a  fool  as  they  make  her 
out  to  be.  Besides,  a  man  is  not  obliged  to  carry  his 
wife  about  with  him  wherever  he  goes." 

But  Tom  would  not  hear  of  it.  He  had  not  the  least 
idea  that  his  succession  was  in  danger,  and  he  was  a 
great  deal  too  fond  of  pretty  women  to  forget  Edith,  or 
to  enertain  without  disgust  the  idea  of  marrying  such  a 
one  as  Lady  Maria.  So  he  turned  the  tables  upon  his 
uncle  at  last  by  suggesting  that  he  should  bring  the  two 
properties  together  by  marrying  her  himself. 

"  That's  nonsense,"  said  the  earl,  in  a  rage  ;  "  utter 
nonsense,  and  great  impertinence  besides.  I  am  not 
quite  such  an  old  fool  as  that  comes  to,  and  1  don't 
think  you  have  any  reason  for  calling  me  one." 

But  the  carl  put  the  suggestion  again  to  himself  as  he 


5 8  SHOWING  HOW  THE 

was  dressing  for  dinner,  and  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  though  he  certainly  could  not  marry  Lady  Maria 
Bent,  there  was  no  special  reason  why  he  should  not 
frighten  his  nephew  into  showing  a  little  more  respect 
for  his  wishes  by  marrying  somebody  else.  "  I  am  an 
ugly  old  beggar,  I  know,"  said  he,  making  a  face  at 
himself  in  the  glass;  "but  I  have  got  a  good  many 
thousands  a  year,  and  if  I  can  find  a  woman  who  will 
be  likely  to  have  me,  hanged  if  I  won't  ask  her." 

So  the  earl  went  down-stairs,  and  dined  tete-a-tete 
with  his  nephew  Tom.  The  soup  was  greasy  and  cold ; 
the  fish  was  watery  ;  the  sweetbread  was  all  gristle  and 
fat,  the  mutton  tough,  the  pheasant  raw,  and  the  bread 
sauce  like  a  poultice.  It  was  the  most  villainously  bad 
dinner  that  ever  wras  put  on  table,  and  the  earl  was  very 
angry  indeed.  However,  he  drank  his  wine  like  a  man  ; 
and  when  Tom  Pippin  had  retired  to  the  smoking-room, 
after  his  second  or  third  glass  of  sherry,  he  ordered  up 
a  pint  bottle  of  claret  for  his  own  especial  use,  and 
desired  that  Mrs.  Curd,  the  cook,  might  be  sent  up 
to  him. 

Mrs.  Curd  was  a  long  time  in  obeying  the  summons, 
and  the  earl  had  finished  his  claret  by  the  time  she 
knocked  at  the  door.  He  had  not  the  faintest  notion 
what  would  come  of  the  interview ;  no  more  had  she. 

He  had  only  seen  her  once  before,  when  he  engaged 
her  :  for  Lord  Appletree  attended  to  all  such  business 
himself.  "I  shall  give  you  thirty  pounds  a  year,"  he 
said,  "  to  cook  and  keep  house  for  me  down  here.  It 
is  but  a  little  place,  and  I  only  come  for  a  few  weeks  in 
the  hunting-season.  I  shall  always  expect  a  nice  well- 
dressed  dinner.     Good-morning." 


EARL    CAME    TO   DO   IT.  59 

On  this  occasion  she  had  been  in  her  walking  costume, 
and  the  earl  did  not  take  any  particular  notice  of  her 
appearance.  But  when  she  came  softly  into  the  room, 
arrayed  in  evening  attire,  and  dropped  a  modest  curtsy 
at  the  door,  and  then  folded  her  hands  with  matron- 
like simplicity  upon  her  little  white  apron,  and  waited 
for  further  orders,  Lord  Appletree  thought  to  himself 
that  really,  for  her  station  in  life,  she  was  not  by  any 
means  a  bad-looking  woman. 

"Mrs.  Curd,"  he  began,  "pray  what  is  the  reason 
that  I  have  such  abominably  bad  dinners?  I  have  been 
nearly  poisoned  to-night.  Everything  was  as  nasty  as 
it  could  possibly  be." 

"I  am  sure,  my  lord,  I  am  very  much  surprised  to 
hear  it.  I  never  heard  any  complaints  before,  and 
wherever  I   have  lived  I  have  always  given  satisfac- 


tion." 


"Then  some  people  are  very  easily  satisfied,  that  is 
all  I  can  say.  I  am  not  very  particular  myself,  but  I 
cannot  eat  bread  poultices,  and  if  you  send  me  up  any 
more  of  them,  we  must  part." 

"  Poultices,  my  lord  !  well,  I  never  did  !  I  think  I 
must  have  misunderstood  you,  my  lord." 

"Not  in  the  least,  my  good  woman  ;  only  don't  let 
it  occur  again." 

"  No,  my  lord,  it  shall  not  occur  again  ;  and  if  your 
lordship  pleases,  I  should  wish  to  leave.  I  trust  I  shall 
do  my  duty,  go  where  1  will  ;  needier  do  I  desire  to  be 
disrespec  tful  neether  to  master  nor  mistress ;  but  I  could 
not  think  of  remaining  in  a  house  where  I  have  been 
accused  of  making  poultices,  not  on  the  same  terms." 

"  Pooh,  nonsense,  Mrs.  Curd;  we  shall  get  on  very 


60  SHOWING  HOW  THE 

well  for  the  future,  I  dare  say.     Only  I  have  a  particu- 
lar dislike  to  poul 1  mean,  I  like  my  bread  sauce 

very  nicely  done." 

"  I  am  sure  it's  very  hard,"  said  Mrs.  Curd,  putting 
her  hand  up  to  her  eyes.  "  So  as  I  have  tried  to  please, 
slaving  night  and  day;  and  them  impudent  hussies 
of  servants  down-stairs  so  troublesome  to  manage,  too. 
I  thought  I  had  got  a  nice  comfortable  place  at  last. 
Oh,  deary  me  !" 

"  Well,  my  good  creature,  don't  cry,"  said  the  earl, 
who  could  not  bear  the  sight  of  a  woman  in  tears.  "  I'll 
have  another  pheasant  for  dinner  to-morrow,  and  then 
we  shall  be  all  right,  I  dare  say."  And  as  he  spoke 
Lord  Appletree  came  close  up  to  the  cook,  and  put  his 
hand  upon  her  arm. 

It  was  a  nice  fat  soft  arm ;  any  one  could  feel  that, 
even  through  the  stiff  calico  sleeve  which  covered  it. 
And  then  it  was  a  very  little  way  from  the  cook's  arm 
to  the  cook's  neck,  which  was  fatter  and  softer  still. 
So  the  end  of  it  was  that  the  earl  put  his  arm  round  the 
cook's  neck,  the  wicked  old  man,  and  kissed  her. 

She  was  a  comely-looking  woman  enough,  with  nice 
red  lips  and  bright  blue  eyes  ;  and  as  she  did  not  strug- 
gle or  make  any  fuss  about  being  kissed,  he  kisssd  her 
again. 

"  I  did  not  think  you  would  do  that,  my  lord,"  she 
said  at  last,  "and  I  don't  think  you  had  ought  to,  nee- 
dier. It  is  not  what  I  have  been  used  to  where  I  have 
lived  before,  to  have  such  liberties  taken,  and  that  I 
can  tell  your  lordship." 

"No  liberty  at  all,  my  dear  woman,"  said  the  earl, 
kissing  her  again,  for  now  that  he  had  begun  he  did  not 


EARL    CAME    TO  DO  IT.  6 1 

like  leaving  off.  "We  shall  be  very  good  friends  now, 
I  am  sure ;  and  look  here,  Susan " 

"  My  name  is  not  Susan,"  said  Mrs.  Curd,  drawing 
herself  up  with  dignity.      "  It's  Martha." 

"Well,  then,  Martha,  here  is  a  sovereign  for  you; 
and  now  you  can  go  and  get  your  supper.  Good- 
night."    And  the  old  rascal  kissed  her  once  more. 

Then  he  sat  down  and  thought  about  it  all,  and  won- 
dered how  he  could  have  been  such  a  fool,  at  his  time 
of  life,  as  to  go  kissing  a  middle-aged  woman.  And 
yet  Mfs.  Curd  had  been  very  nice  to  him.  Why  should 
he  not  kiss  her  ?  Why  should  he  not  even  marry  her  ? 
There  was  no  reason  why  he  should  be  a  lonely  old  man 
for  the  rest  of  his  life,  because  he  had  chosen  not  to 
bore  himself  with  a  wife  until  now.  Mrs.  Curd  was  not 
likely  to  have  a  family,  so  it  could  do  no  harm  to  his 
heir;  and  if  it  did,  let  his  heir  be  hanged.  Tom  Pip- 
pin was  nothing  to  him,  that  he  should  succeed  him  as 
a  matter  of  course,  and  play  the  very  devil  with  the 
property — for  everybody  knew  what  a  spendthrift  Tom 
was.  People  might  laugh  at  him,  and  abuse  him,  and 
even  cut  him  ;  but  what  of  that  ?  He  was  great  enough 
and  rich  enough  to  be  independent  of  them  all;  his 
mind  was  made  up ;  he  would  do  what  many  an  old 
man  had  done  before,  and  marry  his  cook. 

So  thought  the  earl  as  he  sat  alone  in  his  easy-chair; 
and  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  Mrs.  Curd,  as  she  sat 
alone  in  her  little  housekeeper's  room,  had  her  thoughts 
on  the  matter  too.  What  did  his  lordship  mean,  she 
should  like  to  know,  by  kissing  of  her?  A  proud  old 
gentleman  like  him,  as  didn't  seem  to  think  any  born 
lady  good  enough  for  him,  to  go  a  kissing  of  his  cook ! 


62  SHOWING  HOW  THE 

She  should  as  soon  have  thought  of  being  kissed  by  the 
Prince  of  Wales.  Perhaps  he  had  taken  a  little  too 
much  wine,  and  yet  he  seemed  sober  enough.  Well, 
all  she  knew  was,  she  would  not  put  up  with  it,  that 
she  wouldn't ;  and  she  should  give  notice  in  the 
morning. 

The  morning  came ;  and,  strange  to  say,  the  cook 
and  her  master  were  both  in  the  same  frame  of  mind. 
Resolutions  made  overnight  do  not  often  come  to 
much;  but  in  this  case  the  earl  was  still  determined  to 
marry  his  cook,  and  the  cook  was  still  determined  to 
protect  her  dignity  by  delivering  up  the  housekeeper's 
keys,  and  making  over  the  preparation  of  bread  poul- 
tices to  some  more  artistic  matron. 

"Sit  down,  Martha,  if  you  please,"  said  the  earl  as 
she  entered  the  room  after  breakfast.  "  I  want  to  have 
a  little  conversation  with  you." 

"  I  should  prefer  to  stand,  my  lord,  if  your  lordship 
pleases ;  and  I  should  desire  to  be  addressed  by  your 
lordship  as  Mrs.  Curd." 

"Why  as  Mrs.  Curd,  I  should  like  to  know?"  said 
the  earl.     "You  never  were  married,  were  you?" 

"  My  lord,"  answered  the  cook,  beginning  to  whim- 
per, "I  did  not  come  here  to  be  upbraided  with  the 
loneliness  of  my  lot,  which  it  have  pleased  Providence 
that  I  should  be  a  spinster,  but  to  give  notice  to  quit 
your  lordship's  service  this  day  month.  I  trust  I  shall 
do  my  duty,  go  where  I  will ;  needier  do  I  wish  to  be 
disrespectful  neether  to  master  nor  mistress ;  but,  after 
what  occurred  in  this  room  last  night,  I  could  not 
think  of  remaining  in  the  house  any  longer,  not  upon 
the  same  terms." 


EARL    CAME    TO  DO   IT. 


63 


"Then  you  shall  remain  on  different  terms,  my  good 
creature  ;  you  shall  be  my  wife.  There,  you  need  not 
jump ;  I  am  quite  in  earnest.  Come  and  give  me  a 
kiss." 

"No,  my  lord,  you  will  excuse  me,  but  I  know  my 
duty.  If  your  lordship  wanted  a  wife,  you  would  seek 
one  from  your  own  exalted  station,  and  not  trifle  with 
the  feelings  of  a  homely  person  like  me."  And  Mrs. 
Curd,  as  with  befitting  dignity  she  declined  her  master's 
offer,  nevertheless  smiled  her  prettiest  upon  him,  and 
contrived,  almost  imperceptibly,  to  get  herself  within 
reach  of  his  arm;  a  movement  of  which  Lord  Apple- 
tree  took  so  base  an  advantage,  that  when  Tom  Pippin 
entered  the  room,  some  fifteen  minutes  afterwards,  he 
found  the  cook  sitting  upon  his  uncle's  knee,  with  his 
ugly  little  pug  nose  buried  in  her  dainty  neck,  and  his 
hand  pinching  her  chubby  cheeks  as  if  they  were  all 
his  own. 

Of  course  Tom  burst  out  laughing;  there  was  no- 
thing else  for  him  to  do.  And  of  course  Mrs.  Curd 
rushed  from  the  room  with  a  scream  of  mingled  terror 
and  triumph,  leaving  the  earl  to  settle  the  matter  with 
his  heir.  As  for  Lord  Appletree,  he  simply  cursed  his 
own  stupidity  in  not  having  bolted  the  door,  and 
wished  his  affectionate  nephew  any  imaginable  depth 
underground. 

"What  the  devil  do  you  mean,  sir,  by  bursting  into 
the  room  like  that?"  said  the  earl,  trembling  with 
confusion  and  rage. 

"I  am  really  very  sorry,"  said  Tom,  laughing  still. 
"  I  had  not  an  idea  you  were  aw  engaged.  But,  by 
Jove,  that  wasn't  aw  Lady  Maria,  was  it?" 


64  SHOWING  HOW  THE 

"No,  sir,  it  was  not;  it  was  Mrs.  Curd,  the  lady 
whom  I  am  going  to  marry,"  said  the  earl,  thinking 
the  murder  might  as  well  come  out  at  once.  At  any 
rate,  he  was  not  going  to  be  abashed  before  his  own 
nephew. 

"Is  she,  aw,  a  Devonshire  Curd,  one  of  Lord 
Junket's  people?"  asked  Tom,  languidly  throwing 
himself  into  a  chair. 

"  No,  sir,  she  is  not  one  of  anybody's  people.  She 
is  at  present  my  cook.  This  day  fortnight  she  will  be 
my  wife." 

"  By  Jove,  you  must  be  aw  joking,  you  know.  You 
can't  seriously  mean  to  say  that  you  are  going  to 
mawwy  your  cook.  It's  too  ridiculous,  you  know,  ha, 
ha !"  And  Tom,  regardless  of  the  old  man's  feelings, 
roared  with  laughter. 

"  It  could  be  nothing  to  you,  sir,  if  I  were  going  to 
marry  my  grandmother." 

"Why,  that's  pwohibited,"  said  Tom.  "I  remem- 
ber I  used  to  read  about  it  in  church,  at  the  end  of 
the  Prayer  Book :  'A  man  may  not  marry  his  grand- 
mother.' But  you  are  not  in  earnest,  sir.  You 
would  not  do  a  thing  to  make  all  the  county  laugh  at 
you." 

"I  mean  to  please  myself,  sir,  let  the  county  laugh 
as  much  as  it  will.  And  it  pleases  me  to  make  that 
woman  my  wife;  unless,  Tom,  you  will  oblige  me 
about  Lady  Maria.  I'll  give  it  up,  then,  I  declare  I 
will.  I  do  so  want  to  see  the  properties  brought 
together." 

"  Couldn't  do  it  at  any  price,"  said  Tom;   "she  is 


EARL    CAME    TO  DO  IT. 


65 


aw  such  a  frightful  creature.     I'd  aw — yes,  by  Jove, 

I'd  sooner  marry  my  coo " 

"Leave  the  room,  you  impudent  young  villain!" 
cried  the  earl ;  and  Tom  Pippin,  utterly  unable,  in 
spite  of  his  uncle's  wrath,  to  restrain  his  laughter, 
sauntered  away. 


66  LORD  APPLETREE  SEES  HIS 


CHAPTER    VI. 

LORD   APPLETREE   SEES   HIS    FRIENDS   AT   DINNER. 

And  so  the  old  Earl  of  Appletree  married  his  cook, 
and  had  his  baby  christened,  and  invited  his  friends  to 
make  merry  with  him.  Very  grand  was  the  dinner- 
party on  the  Monday  after  the  christening.  Of  course 
nobody  got  anything  to  eat,  it  being  universally  recog- 
nized as  the  sign  of  a  plebeian  stomach  to  feed  before 
company.  Good  manners  demand  that  a  poor  hungry 
wretch,  who  has  had  no  luncheon,  and  who  breakfasted 
at  eight  or  nine,  shall  shake  his  head  impatiently  at 
half  the  things  the  waiter  carries  round,  as  if  the  man 
were  simply  boring  him  with  his  odious  dishes ;  and, 
when  at  last  he  accepts  with  well-bred  indifference  a 
scrap  of  mutton  about  the  size  of  a  card-case,  shall 
"  play  with  his  knife  and  fork,"  and  eat  his  food  in 
pretty  little  morsels  as  if  it  were  making  him  sick. 
The  entire  object  of  dining,  in  these  days  of  civiliza- 
tion, appears  to  be  to  see  how  soon  the  good  things 
can  be  hurried  off  the  table  again.  Will  anybody 
kindly  inform  me,  since  persons  of  refinement  clearly 
do  not  eat  at  dinner-time,  when  they  do  eat?  Do 
they  gorge  at  the  hour  of  luncheon  ?  Do  ladies  forget 
themselves  over  their  thin  bread-and-butter  at  five 
o'clock,  and  gentlemen  indulge  in  surreptitious  chops 


FRIENDS  AT  DINNER.  67 

and  bitter  beer  in  their  dressing-rooms?  It  may  very 
possibly  be  vulgar  to  eat ;  but  life  can  scarcely  be  sup- 
ported without  descending  to  the  vulgarity;  and  I 
really  find  it  difficult  to  believe,  with  reference  to  the 
sweet  creature  whom  I  have  taken  in  to  dinner,  who 
holds  the  footman  and  all  his  dainties  in  undisguised 
contempt,  and  who  clearly  looks  upon  me  as  an  ill- 
conditioned  Goth  when  I  modestly  ask  for  another 
slice  off  the  breast  of  a  chicken — I  find  it  difficult,  I 
confess,  to  persuade  myself  that  those  plump  shoulders, 
and  that  exquisitely  symmetrical  bust,  are  maintained 
in  their  fair  proportions  by  lady-like  sippings  of  white 
soup  and  trifle. 

But,  if  his  guests  got  nothing  to  eat,  Lord  Appletree 
took  care  that  they  should  have  plenty  to  drink,  and 
the  choicest  treasures  of  his  cellar  made  glad  the  heart 
of  those  assembled  to  do  the  young  viscount  honor. 
Good  wine  in  moderation,  after  a  good  dinner,  never 
yet  hurt  anybody ;  but  good  wine  on  an  almost  empty 
stomach,  as  one  very  generally  has  to  drink  it,  makes 
some  men  cross,  and  some  men  stupid,  and  all  men 
more  or  less  disposed  to  breakfast  off  soda-water  in  the 
morning.  Now,  Captain  Northcote,  R.N.,  of  Ale- 
worth,  near  Dumplington,  had  drunk  a  great  deal  of 
wine  on  this  particular  evening;  and  the  Rev.  Robin- 
son Rampion,  Rector  of  Withycombe,  Canon  of  Exeter, 
Prebendary  of  Wells,  Rural  Dean,  and  Chaplain  to 
Lord  Appletree,  had  drunk  a  great  deal  more.  They 
were  neither  of  them  anything  like  tipsy,  of  course; 
but  they  had  both  arrived  at  that  stage,  where  language 
is  apt  to  become  personal,  and  arguments,  if  they  lose 
in  clearness,  can  hardly  be  said  to  lose  in  point  and  vigor. 


68  LORD  APPLE  TREE  SEES  HLS 

Captain  Northcote  did  not  much  believe  in  parsons, 
and  had  no  particular  objection  to  saying  so.  He 
could  not  quite  understand  why  they  should  marry 
wives  like  other  people,  eat  and  drink  like  other  peo- 
ple, and  enjoy  the  good  things  of  this  life  throughout 
the  week  more  than  most  other  professional  men,  and 
then  get  up  in  the  pulpit  on  Sunday  and  preach  for 
fifty  minutes  about  the  blessedness  of  self-denial,  and 
the  heartless  vanities  of  the  world.  "  It's  all  my  eye," 
said  the  captain.  "  If  the  world  is  half  so  wicked  as 
they  make  it  out  to  be,  what  business  have  the  parsons 
to  go  out  to  dinner,  and  crack  their  jokes  over  a  glass 
of  port  wine?  I  can  respect  the  monk  or  hermit,  who 
kneels  before  his  crucifix  all  day  long,  with  clasped 
hands  and  streaming  eyes.  I  may  think  him  mistaken, 
but  I  can't  think  him  a  humbug.  Now  your  modern 
ascetic  parson,  with  his  rich  living  and  his  fine-lady 
wife,  is  a  humbug — an  unmitigated  humbug.  He  has 
got  all  that  this  world  can  give  him,  with  the  addition 
of  a  halo  of  sanctity  borrowed  from  the  world  to 
come  ;  and  he  growls  at  you  and  me  because  we  want 
to  enjoy  this  world's  comforts  for  the  short  time  they 
last,  and  are  willing  to  let  him  keep  the  halo  of  sanc- 
tity for  himself.  In  the  name  of  common  sense,  let  us 
have  one  thing  or  the  other.  If  the  parsons  think  so 
badly  of  the  world,  let  them  renounce  it  once  for  all 
as  an  unholy  thing,  separate  themselves  bodily  from 
women,  wine,  society,  and  all  that  makes  this  life 
pleasant,  and  then  preach  to  us,  as  men  who  have 
earned  a  right  to  speak,  of  another  and  a  better  life 
above.  But  so  long  as  they  do  exactly  as  we  sinful 
laymen  do,  under  pretense  of  leavening  our  wickedness 


FRIENDS  AT  DINNER. 


69 


with  their  morality,  so  long  shall  we  regard  them  as 
very  good  company  on  Saturday  night,  and  very  miser- 
able expounders  of  a  gospel  which  they  have  invented 
for  themselves  on  Sunday." 

Captain  Northcote  was  not  quite  so  rude  as  to  say 
all  this  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Rampion  at  Lord  Appletree's 
table ;  but  he  said  quite  enough,  in  the  same  strain,  to 
arouse  the  rector's  wrath,  and  provoke  him  to  declare 
war. 

"Ah,"  said  the  captain,  speaking  of  some  London 
clergyman,  whose  name  happened  to  be  just  then  be- 
fore the  public;  "ah — he  is  something  like  a  parson. 
I  don't  believe  in  his  incense  and  chasubles,  because  I 
don't  precisely  know  which  is  which  ;  but  I  do  believe 
in  his  downright  hard  work,  and  self-denial,  and  ac- 
tivity." 

"Activity,  sir!"  broke  in  the  rector.  "I  hate 
activity.  I  once  had  a  curate  who  turned  the  parish 
literally  upside  down  with  his  activity.  I  had  scarcely 
been  away  three  months " 

"Away  three  months!"  echoed  the  captain. 

"Yes,  sir ;  I  hold  a  canonry  at  Exeter." 

"Oh,"  said  the  captain. 

" Before    he  had  gone  bustling  about   among 

the  people,  putting  all  sorts  of  radical  notions  into 
their  heads,  and  making  them  believe  that  nobody 
ever  cared  about  their  souls  or  their  bodies  either  till 
he  came.  The  consequence  was  that  the  moment  I 
returned  home  a  dozen  impertinent  boys  waylaid  me 
at  the  schoolroom  door,  and  said  that  they  had  learned 
to  sing,  and  bothered  me  to  let  them  wear  surplices  in 
the  choir,  and   chant   the   Psalms.     A  very   indiscreet 


70  LORD  APPLE  TREE  SEES  HLS 

young  man  was  Mr.  Burn  ;"  and  here  the  rector  gave 
a  patronizing  glance  at  his  present  curate,  who  sat  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  table,  by  way  of  complimenting 
him  on  his  discretion. 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  you  gentlemen  are  confound- 
edly hard  upon  your  curates,"  said  the  captain.  "You 
expect  them  to  work,  and  not  to  work.  It  isn't  reason- 
able. If  they  do  a  lot  of  good  in  the  parish,  you  are 
jealous  of  them;  if  they  don't  do  a  lot  of  good,  you 
sack  them.  And  the  way  some  of  them  are  paid  for 
their  labor — I  say,  sir,  it's  diabolical.  What  do  you 
think  of  this,  sir  ?  I  know  a  parson  whose  living  is 
worth  a  thousand  a  year ;  and  he  gives  his  curate — 
how  much  do  you  suppose,  now?" 

"Really,  sir,  I  have  no  means  of  judging;  but 
you  are  not  perhaps  aware  that  there  are  circum- 
stances  ' ' 

"I  know  all  about  it,  sir;  I'll  tell  you  the  circum- 
stances. The  circumstances  are  these,  sir.  The  man 
has  a  thousand  a  year ;  and  he  has  the  barefaced  im- 
pudence to  give  his  curate  a  hundred  pounds  out  of  it, 
a  beggarly  tenth  part,  for  doing  more  than  half  his 
work  for  him.  Do  you  call  that  honest,  sir?  I  ask  you 
plainly,  do  you  call  that  honest?" 

"Come,  come,  Northcote,"  interposed  Lord  Apple- 
tree  ;  for  Mr.  Toyle,  the  curate,  was  in  a  cold  perspira- 
tion, and  the  rector  showed  manifest  symptoms  of  an 
apoplectic  fit. 

"  I  say,  sir,"  persisted  the  captain,  rising  from  his 
seat,  and  getting  nearer  and  nearer  to  his  victim,  "I 
say  that  man  is  a  cheat,  sir;  a  common  swindler, 
sir!" 


FRIENDS  AT  DINNER. 


71 


"You  can  scarcely  be  aware,  sir,"  began  the  rector, 
white  with  rage,  "  that  your  remarks " 

"I  say,  sir,  that  a  man  who  has  solemnly  undertaken 
the  most  sacred  work,  and  who  pays  somebody  else  a 
beggarly  hundred  a  year  to  do  it  for  him,  ought  to  be 
hung — to  be  hung,  sir — I  say  to  be  hung  !" 

"  Never  you  mind  him,  parson,"  said  Lord  Apple- 
tree.  "  He  does  not  mean  half  he  says.  Come  along 
into  the  drawing-room,  Northcote,  that's  a  good  fellow, 
and  drink  a  cup  of  tea." 

So  the  guests  who  were  staying  in  the  house  went  into 
the  drawing-room,  while  Mr.  Rampion  was  driven  home 
to  the  rectory,  and  Mr.  Toyle,  whose  lodgings  were  in 
another  direction,  set  off  for  his  solitary  walk.  Among 
the  many  privileges  attached  to  this  gentleman's  curacy, 
must  certainly  be  reckoned  that  of  dining  out  two  or 
three  times  a  week ;  for  Mr.  Toyle  was  hospitably  re- 
ceived both  at  the  big  house  and  at  the  rectory.  Every- 
body was  civil  and  kind  to  him,  asking  thoughtfully 
after  his  sister,  who  had  once  been  staying  with  him  on 
a  visit ;  hoping  that  the  chimney  at  his  lodgings  had 
given  over  smoking,  and  that  he  had  not  found  the 
bloodhound  unchained  in  the  farm-yard  since  the  might 
when  that  valuable  guardian  of  property  made  its  teeth 
meet  in  the  calf  of  his  leg.  These  were  very  pleasant 
evenings  to  Mr.  Toyle.  Nobody  snubbed  him — not 
even  the  servants — and  nobody  bored  him  to  sing  ;  but 
they  all  treated  him  like  a  gentleman,  which  he  certainly 
was,  and  tried  to  make  him  feel  at  home  and  welcome. 
There  was  one  little  drawback,  to  be  sure, — the  walk 
home  at  night.  For  Mr.  Toyle,  though  not  a  coward, 
was  habitually  nervous.     I  am  not  sure  that  from  any 


72  LORD  APPLETREE   SEES  HIS 

bodily  peril  whatever  Mr.  Toyle  would  have  run  away; 
but  it  did  not  take  much  to  startle  him,  and  make  him 
creep,  and  drive  all  his  breath  where  it  never  was  meant 
to  be.  Living  so  much  alone  had  increased,  if  it  did 
not  originate,  this  infirmity;  and  Mr.  Toyle  had  a 
strong  objection  to  walking  by  himself  at  night  along  a 
lonely  lane.  It  was  all  very  well  to  go  out  to  dinner ; 
but  there  was  no  particular  treat  in  turning  out  of  a  hot 
cheerful  drawing-room,  at  eleven  o'clock,  into  a  dreary, 
and  for  the  most  part  very  dirty,  road.  "  I  am  afraid 
it  is  a  rough  night,"  Lord  Appletree  would  say,  when 
the  curate  rose  to  take  leave.  "Oh,  I  do  not  mind 
that,  thank  you,"  he  would  answer;  "one  soon  gets 
used  to  wind  and  rain."  And  yet,  when  John  Thomas 
had  let  him  out,  and  he  found  himself  plunging  into 
the  darkness,  he  felt  more  inclined  to  coil  himself  round 
and  go  to  sleep  under  some  laurels  in  the  shrubbery 
than  to  strike  across  the  park,  with  its  gaunt  timber 
creaking  overhead,  and  to  face  the  horrible  lane,  with 
its  murderous-looking  copse  on  the  one  side,  and  its 
great  yawning  quarry  on  the  other.  But  it  was  not 
always  dark  and  rainy.  Periodically  the  curate's  walk 
home  was  under  a  bright  sky,  and  over  a  hard  frosty 
road.  "You  will  have  a  moon  to-night,"  said  Mr. 
Rampion.  "I  almost  envy  you  your  beautiful  walk." 
"Do  you?"  muttered  the  curate,  tying  on  his  scarf; 
"then  I  wish  the  deuce  you'd  walk  it  for  me."  Beau- 
tiful !  why,  he  hated  the  moon,  and  all  the  stars  to- 
gether. Groping  forward  in  the  dark  was  bad  enough, 
but  that  was  nothing  to  the  lights  and  shadows  of  a 
fine  frosty  night.  Every  tree  looked  as  if  it  had  some- 
body behind  it ;    every  gate   appeared  to  be  on  the 


FRIENDS  AT  DINNER. 


73 


swing ;  and  he  knew  the  road  so  well  that  if  a  sprig  of 
holly  were  bent  out  of  its  place  he  started  and  thought 
there  must  be  something  wrong.  Besides,  there  were 
real  and  substantial  perils  in  these  solitary  walks.  Had 
not  pedestrians  by  night,  as  inoffensive  as  himself,  been 
garroted,  or  knocked  down  with  bludgeons?  And 
what  should  prevent  the  like  from  happening  to  him? 
All  the  parish  knew  where  he  was  gone,  and  when  he 
would  come  back  again;  and,  if  any  needy  tramp  felt 
disposed  to  lay  wait  for  him  and  tap  him  on  the  head, 
what  should  hinder  him  ?  Such  were  the  curate's  agree- 
able thoughts,  as  he  walked  home  by  moonlight  ;  and 
will  anyone  declare  that  such  thoughts  were  unnatural? 
It  is  very  easy  for  you,  O  strong-minded  reader,  strong 
in  the  company  of  merry  laughing  children,  strong  in 
the  cosiness  of  your  bright  fireside, — it  is  very  easy  for 
you  to  smile  and  sneer,  and  say  that  the  poor  curate 
was  a  coward  and  a  fool.  But  just  you  wait  till  the 
fire  is  gone  out,  and  the  children  are  safe  in  bed,  and 
then  turn  out  yourself,  and  see.  There  is  quite 
enough  of  nervousness  or  superstition  about  most  of 
us  to  make  a  lonely  walk  at  midnight  anything  rather 
than  agreeable;  and  the  man  is  simply  not  to  be 
believed  who  tells  you  in  a  room  full  of  people  that 
he  would  not  mind  walking  through  a  churchyard  by 
himself,  as  the  clock  strikes  the  sensational  hour  of 
twelve. 

Some  folks  is  brave  by  candlelight, 

Some  folks  is  brave  by  <1  ly  ; 
'Taint  many  folks  is  brave  by  night, 

When  the  candle's  took  away. 


74  LORD  APPLETREE   SEES  HIS 

It's  mighty  fine  to  laugh  at  ghosts ; 

But  I  always  did  remark 
That  them  as  does  screams  out  with  fright 

If  you  leaves  'em  in  the  dark. 

It  was  a  desperately  rough  night  in  the  early  part  of 
October  when  the  Rev.  Ernest  Toyle  started  off  for  his 
homeward  walk  after  Lord  Appletree's  christening-din- 
ner. The  elms  were  bowing  themselves  backwards  and 
forwards  till  the  curate  thought  their  trunks  must  be 
made  of  india-rubber.  The  wind  roared  overhead  in 
a  perfect  fury,  as  if  the  world  had  been  wickeder  that 
day  than  usual,  and  must  be  well  lashed  for  its  naughti- 
ness, if  not  swept  clean  away.  It  was  as  much  as  the 
poor  man  could  do  to  stand,  and  a  good  deal  more 
than  he  could  do  to  walk  straight  before  him,  even  if  it 
had  not  been  so  pitch  dark  that  he  could  scarcely  find 
the  road.  Staggering  along  sideways  like  a  crab,  with 
his  left  hand  clutching  hold  of  the  brim  of  his  wide- 
awake, he  ran  first  into  a  thorn-bush,  secondly  into  a 
heap  of  something  softer  but  less  inviting,  and  thirdly 
into  the  arms  of  a  great  big  burly  fellow,  whom  he  rec- 
ognized, before  he  had  time  to  get  frightened,  as  the 
village  policeman. 

"Good  gracious,  Cuffs!"  he  cried,  "who  ever 
thought  of  meeting  you  here  !  Why,  I  did  not  know 
that  you  ever  turned  out  into  the  country  so  late  as 
this." 

"No  more  I  doesn't,  sir,  leastways  not  commonly; 
but  there's  such  a  terrible  queer  lot  of  chaps  hanging 
about  just  now,  along  of  these  here  rejoicings,  that  I've 
had  a  hint  from  our  inspector  to  keep  a  eye  upon  'em. 
So  I  thought,  as  this  'ere's  a. proper  night  for  bugglaries, 


FRIENDS  AT  DINNER. 


75 


I'd  walk  round  the  great  house  and  see  what  was 
going  on." 

"  Dear  me  !"  said  the  curate,  "  I  hope  Isha'n't  meet 
anybody.  Why,  Cuffs,  I've  got  as  much  as  five-and- 
twenty  sovereigns  in  my  purse  at  this  moment." 

"  Five-and-twenty  sovereigns,  Mr.  Toyle?  that's  a 
large  sum  of  money  to  carry  about  with  you  !" 

"  It  was  quarter-day  last  week,  you  know,  Cuffs," 
explained  the  curate,  who  was  by  no  means  certain 
that  the  policeman  did  not  suspect  him  of  having  picked 
somebody's  pocket  in  the  earl's  dining-room.  "I 
changed  my  check  in  Dumplington  to-day,  and  brought 
the  sovereigns  with  me." 

"I  almost  wonder,  sir,"  observed  the  policeman, 
"that  you  did  not  lock  the  money  up  in  your  desk." 

"  That  was  because  I  had  only  just  time  to  dress  for 
dinner,"  said  the  curate.  "  Why,  my  good  fellow," 
he  continued,  laughing,  "  you  don't  really  think  I  stole 
it,  do  you?" 

"No,  sir — no,  I  don't  think  that,"  said  the  police- 
man ;  graciously,  indeed,  but  with  an  air  of  judicious 
reservation  befitting  a  member  of  her  Majesty's  Execu- 
tive.     "No,  sir,  I  don't  think  you  stole  it." 

"Thank  you,  Cuffs,"  said  the  curate.  "And  now 
I'll  say  good-night." 

"Would  you  like  me  to  see  you  home,  sir?"  asked 
the  policeman,  civilly. 

"Oh,  lor,  no!"  said  the  curate.  "I  shall  do  well 
enough."  So  he  staggered  on  again,  turning  out  of 
the  road,  and  following,  as  best  he  might,  a  pathway 
which  led  to  a  corner  of  the  park,  where  there  was  a 
stile,  and   then  a  short  lane,  and  then  a  pond,  with  a 


76     LORD  APPLETREE'S  FRIENDS  AT  DINNER. 

great  ash  drooping  over  it,  and  then  a  stone-quarry, 
and  then  the  village  green. 

He  was  just  getting  over  the  stile,  some  ten  minutes 
after  parting  with  the  policeman,  when  he  saw,  leaning 
against  the  park  palings,  the  realization  of  all  his  hor- 
rible dreams  and  fancies  as  he  had  passed  that  murder- 
ous corner.  A  ruffianly-looking  figure  with  no  hat, 
but  a  handkerchief  bound  round  its  head,  and  a  cudgel 
in  its  hand.  What  a  fool  he  had  been  to  go  out  to 
dinner  !  He  would  never,  never  go  again  !  Why  had 
not  he  crawled  into  one  of  Lord  Appletree's  empty 
kennels,  or  borrowed  a  rug  out  of  the  hall  and  curled 
himself  up  in  the  shrubbery? 

He  was  too  much  terrified  to  scream,  but  he  stepped 
on,  his  knees  almost  giving  way,  and  jerked  out  the 
most  cheerful  good-night  which  under  the  circum- 
stances he  could  command.  "  Good-night,"  returned 
the  man,  as  he  passed  behind  him.  The  curate  suspi- 
ciously turned  round,  but  only  in  time  to  transfer  a 
blow  intended  for  the  back  of  his  head  to  a  more  dan- 
gerous spot  behind  the  ear.  It  was  all  over  in  a  mo- 
ment. Down  he  went  like  a  rabbit,  rolling  over  to  the 
side  of  the  lane,  where  he  lay,  either  stunned  or  dead, 
till  the  policeman  came  back  from  his  rounds,  picked 
him  up,  and  carried  him  tenderly  home. 


CAPTAIN  NORTHCOTE   PAYS  A    VISIT. 


77 


CHAPTER    VII. 

CAPTAIN    NORTHCOTE   PAYS   A   VISIT. 

The  next  day  there  was  a  sensation  in  the  village  of 
Withycombe.  The  Rev.  Toyle  had  been  thrown  into 
the  pond  and  drowned.  The  Rev.  Toyle  had  had  his 
throat  cut  in  Hangman's  Lane.  The  Rev.  Toyle  had 
had  his  brains  blown  out  by  Lord  Appletree's  under- 
keeper.  The  Rev.  Toyle  had  been  killed  on  the  spot 
by  the  fall  of  a  tree  in  the  park,  coming  home  from 
dinner.  It  was  a  shame,  it  was,  to  leave  them  rotten 
elms  a  standing.  His  lordship  ought  to  be  persecuted 
for  it,  so  he  did.  If  he  was  a  poor  man,  he  would  not 
be  allowed  to  go  putting  people's  lives  in  danger,  no 
more  he  wouldn't.  Opinions  therefore  differed  as  to 
the  exact  manner  in  which  the  Rev.  Toyle  had  come 
to  his  untimely  end  ;  though  nobody  ventured  to  dis- 
pute the  fact  that,  somehow  or  other,  the  untimely  end 
had  been  successfully  attained. 

But  the  Rev.  Toyle  disappointed  them  all,  and  took 
the  tragedy  of  his  own  decease  (lean  out  of  their 
mouths,  by  keeping  his  shutters  open  and  his  blinds 
drawn  up,  and  turning  out  to  be  alive.  It  was  very 
inconsiderate.  It  was  scarcely  like  a  gentleman.  Had 
the  poor  curate  died,  the  whole  village  would  have 
wept,  and  wept  sincerely  too ;  but,  now  that  he  was 


78        CAPTAIN  NORTHCOTE   PAYS  A    VISIT. 

come  to  life  again,  it  did  seem  rather  hard  that  every- 
thing should  be  humdrum,  and  the  little  world  of 
Withycombe  should  go  plodding  on  precisely  as  be- 
fore. We  all  have  our  facetious  little  ways.  We  enter- 
tain the  highest  possible  regard  for  our  dear  friend  Rob- 
inson, and  certainly  wish  our  neighbor  Jones  no  harm; 
and  yet  it  was  rather  good  fun  to  hear  one  morning, 
when  news  was  somewhat  slack,  that  Brown  had  run 
away  with  Robinson's  pretty  wife,  and  that  Jones  could 
not  pay  his  debts,  and  was  obliged  to  leave  the  town. 
Even  the  weeping  child  who  has  lost  her  mother  derives 
consolation  in  her  grief  from  the  dear  little  black  frock 
which  the  dressmaker  has  just  brought  home.  If  her 
mother  could  come  back  again,  no  doubt  she  Avould  be 
very  glad  to  see  her;  but,  as  her  mother  can't,  it  will 
really  be  very  nice  to  go  to  church  on  Sunday,  and 
show  off  all  the  new  crape  trimmings. 

So  the  curate  turned  out  to  be  alive,  and  was  reported 
as  such  by  Mr.  Cuffs  the  policeman,  when  he  laid  in- 
formation of  the  outrage  before  Lord  Appletree  at 
breakfast-time  on  Tuesday  morning. 

"And  have  you  no  clue  whatever,  Cuffs?"  asked  his 
lordship,  as  he  helped  himself  to  a  deviled  kidney, 
from  a  little  round  silver  dish  on  three  spider's  legs. 

"None  whatever,  my  lord,"  replied  the  policeman, 
"except  this  'ere  empty  purse,  which  I  found  lying  on 
some  weeds  beside  the  pond.  I  conclude  it  do  be- 
long to  Mr.  Toyle,  as  he  told  me  that  he  had  some 
money  about  him;"  and  then  the  servant  of  the 
Crown  narrated  his  meeting  with  the  curate  the  night 
before. 

"So  he  told  you  that  he  had  five-and-twenty  pounds 


CAPTAIN  NORTHCOTE    PAYS  A    VISIT.        79 

about  him,  did  he?"  observed  Captain  Northcote,  in- 
differently. 

"Yes,  my  lord,  he  did,"  replied  the  policeman, 
under  the  natural  impression  that  the  breakfast-party 
was  made  up  of  aristocrats  all  round.  It  is  nice  to  say 
"my  lord."  One  shines  with  borrowed  luster  in  the 
presence  of  noble  earls;  and  better  men  than  Mr. 
Cuffs  have  conferred  imaginary  titles  upon  themselves, 
by  plentifully  my-lording  the  mighty  potentate  with 
whom  they  have  been  permitted  to  converse. 

"Ah,"  said  the  captain,  indifferently  still ;  and  then 
Mr.  Cuffs  was  formally  instructed  to  get  some  breakfast 
down-stairs,  and  to  lose  no  time  in  tracking  out,  with 
all  professional  craft  and  diligence,  the  perpetrator  of 
last  night's  assault. 

After  breakfast  the  young  people  rehearsed  their 
theatricals  for  the  evening;  and  Tom  Pippin,  who  was 
an  accomplished  manager  as  well  as  a  first-rate  actor, 
busied  himself  in  superintending  the  erection  of  a  stage. 
Meanwhile,  Captain  Northcote  walked  down  into  the 
village,  and  asked  his  way  to  the  curate's  rooms.  They 
were  kept  by  a  certain  widow  Giles,  a  woman  with  a 
most  awful  tongue,  who  led  her  lodger  such  a  life  as 
only  British  curates  can  endure.  She  fed  him  well, 
and  gave  him  plenty  of  light  and  air;  and,  if  she 
would  only  have  let  the  wretched  man  alone,  he  might 
have  had  some  chance  of  comfort.  But  no.  She 
dodged  him  in  the  passage,  knocked  incessantly  at  his 
door,  waylaid  him  in  his  going  out  and  coming  in, 
hovered  over  him  with  questions  which  Interested 
neither  him  nor  her,  and  altogether  pitilessly  bored 
him.     She  would   chase  him  all  round   the  garden  to 


So        CAPTAIN  NORTHCOTE    PAYS  A    VISIT. 

tell  him  that  the  coals  could  not  last  more  than  a  fort- 
night longer ;  and  hunt  him  down,  when  he  had  fled 
in  desperation  to  his  bedroom,  to  say  that  the  baker 
had  charged  him  a  halfpenny  too  much  in  his  weekly 
bill.  It  is  thus  that  well-intentioned  matrons  make 
bachelors'  lives  a  burden,  and  force  them,  in  sheer  self- 
defense,  to  embark  upon  a  sea  of  unknown  perils. 

"A  bad  business,  ma'am,"  observed  the  captain,  as 
the  widow  let  him  in. 

"Ah  sir  that  it  is  indeed.  I  never  was  so  shocked 
in  all  my  born  days  as  I  was  a  saying  just  now  to  Mr. 
Toyle." 

"  I  should  have  supposed,  ma'am,  that  the  less  said 
to  Mr.  Toyle  just  now  the  better,"  said  the  captain, 
civilly. 

"  Oh  lor  bless  you  sir  he  like  to  hear  anybody  talk 
he  do  I've  been  a  cheering  of  him  up  for  ever  so  long 
a  telling  of  him  how  my  poor  boy  that  died  of  brain 
fever  got  a  crack  on  his  head  at " 

"Yes,  I  dare  say  it  was  a  great  comfort  to  him, 
ma'am  ;  but  could  I  see  him  for  a  minute  or  two  ?  I 
am  sure  he  must  want  rest,  so  I  won't  keep  him  long." 

"I'll  see  sir  I  make  no  doubt  but  you  can,"  answered 
the  good  lady,  going  up-stairs  and  knocking  at  the 
bedroom  door.  Having  admitted  herself,  she  bustled 
about  for  a  few  minutes  "  to  tidy  up  a  bit,"  and  then 
returned  to  let  the  captain  in. 

"  I  should  like  to  see  the  gentleman  alone,"  said  the 
captain,  perceiving  that  widow  Giles  had  no  present 
idea  of  leaving  the  room.  Then,  walking  quietly  up 
to  the  bedside,  he  shook  the  sick  man's  hand,  and 
made  the  customary  inquiries. 


CAPTAIN  NORTHCOTE   PAYS  A    VISIT.        8 1 

"A  little  shaky  about  the  head,  thank  you,"  re- 
plied the  curate.  "If  I  could  only  keep  that  woman 
out  of  the  room,  I  should  soon  come  round  again." 

"By  Jove,  sir,  you  have  had  a  near  shave  of  it  !" 
said  his  visitor,  looking  at  the  wound.  "  It's  an  un- 
commonly nasty  place,  by  George,  it  is ;  and  you  may 
thank  God  it's  no  worse,"  added  the  gallant  captain, 
whose  mythology  took  a  somewhat  extensive  range. 

"I  was  a  great  fool  to  let  him  hit  me,"  said  the 
curate.  "  I  ought  to  have  turned  round  sharper,  and 
let  out  at  him." 

"So  you  ought,  sir,  and  so  you  will,  another  time, 
I'll  be  bound.  You  haven't  any  suspicion  who  it  was, 
I  suppose?" 

"Not  the -slightest  in  the  world.  The  fellow  was 
muffled  up  to  the  very  eyes." 

"Ah,  it  is  just  as  well  not  to  suspect  anybody.  You 
never  hope  to  see  your  money  again,  of  course?" 

"  Indeed,  I  do,"  said  the  curate.  "  We  have  a  po- 
liceman living  in  the  village,  you  know;  an  awfully 
sharp  fellow.  I  shall  be  very  much  surprised,  and,  I 
am  bound  to  say,  terribly  disappointed,  if  he  does  not 
get  it  back  for  me." 

"  Very  sharp,  I  should  say  he  was,"  returned  the  cap- 
tain. "  I  saw  him  this  morning,  and  he  has  gone  off 
in  chase.  But  if  he  brings  the  thief  home  to-night,  or 
to-morrow  night,  or  any  other  night,  I'll  swallow  him." 

"Dear  me,"  said  the  curate,  "what  makes  you 
think  so?" 

"Think  so!  I  don't  think  anything  about  it. 
You'll  never  get  a  farthing  of  that  money  back  again, 
and,  what  is  more,  the  robber  will  never  be  brought  to 

6 


82        CAPTAIN  NORTHCOTE    PAYS  A    VISIT. 

justice.  It  was  about  the  cleverest  dodge  I  ever  heard 
of.  But  I  did  not  come  here,  sir,  to  console  you  by 
telling  you  that.  I  came  to  ask  a  favor  of  you.  Five- 
and -twenty  sovereigns  is  a  good  lot  of  money,  but  it  is 
not  quite  so  much  to  me,  perhaps,  as  it  is  to  you ;  so, 
as  I  am  prepared  to  take  my  oath  that  you  will  never 
get  your  own  again,  will  you  let  me  make  it  up  to  you? 
Here  it  is,  you  see,"  continued  the  captain,  pushing 
some  notes  under  the  pillow,  as  the  curate  turned  his 
head  away.  "  I'll  look  in  again  to-morrow,  if  I  may, 
and  bring  Lord  Appletree  down.  We  will  tell  you 
how  the  theatricals  went  off.  Horrid  bore  that  you 
can't  get  up  and  see  them.  Good-by."  And,  before 
the  sick  man  could  recover  his  voice  and  thank  him, 
the  captain  had  left  the  room. 

The  promised  visit  was  paid  on  the  Wednesday  morn- 
ing, when  Lord  Appletree  accompanied  the  captain, 
and  took  the  chief  blame  of  Mr.  Toyle's  misfortune 
upon  himself. 

"  It  was  my  fault,"  declared  the  earl,  "  for  sending 
you  home  so  late.  I'll  never  do  such  an  inhospitable 
thing  again.  You  shall  have  a  snug  little  room  kept 
on  purpose  for  you,  Toyle,  and  I  hope  you  will  come 
and  sleep  in  it  three  times  every  week,  at  least,  while 
we  are  here.  But  if  ever  you  should  have  to  walk  at 
midnight  in  the  country  again,  let  me  advise  you,  as  a 
friend,  to  leave  your  purse  behind  you,  and  take  a  good 
big  stick  instead." 

"And  let  vie,''''  added  the  captain,  "advise  you,  as 
a  friend,  if  ever  you  should  have  to  walk  at  midnight 
in  the  country  again,  with  five-and-twenty  sovereigns 
in  your  pocket, — let  me  advise  you — not  to  tell  the 
policeman." 


MR.  GOGGS  GIVES  BREAD  TO    THE  HUNGRY. 


33 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

MR.    GOGGS   GIVES    BREAD    TO   THE   HUNGRY. 

Long  before  the  celebration  of  the  festivities  at 
Withycombe  House,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Goggs  had  obtained 
his  appointment  from  the  trustees  of  Woodruff's  Char- 
ity, and  had  set  up  in  business  as  a  boy-farmer  on  a 
tolerably  extensive  scale. 

The  "charity"  consisted  in  boarding  and  educating 
twelve  boys,  natives  of  the  county,  for  nothing:  the 
master  being  supposed  to  provide  for  their  necessities 
out  of  his  official  salary  of  five  hundred  pounds  a  year. 
These  boys  were  distinguished  from  their  more  profita- 
ble school-fellows  visibly  by  a  square  cap  with  a  white 
tassel,  and  invisibly  by  the  peculiar  consideration  and 
kindness  which  they  received  at  the  hands  of  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Goggs. 

When  old  Simon  Woodruff,  about  the  year  1402, 
devised  certain  dwelling-houses,  in  or  near  the  good 
city  of  Dumplington,  with  lands  adjoining  thereunto, 
for  the  free  maintenance  of  twelve  poor  scholars  for- 
ever, he  could  have  had  but  little  idea  with  what  scru- 
pulous fidelity  his  injunctions  would  be  obeyed.  The 
"  founder's  boys"  at  Dumplington  were  maintained  not 
only  free  of  cost,  but  free  even  of  decent  food — free 
of  bedclothes  enough  to  keep  their  bodies  warm — free 


g4  MR.   GOGGS   GIVES 

of  every  common  civility  to  which  ordinary  mortals 
are  permitted  to  lay  claim.  Generation  after  genera- 
tion of  schoolmasters  had  bullied  them,  and  spited 
them,  and  visited  upon  them,  innocent  or  guilty,  every 
conceivable  crime  committed  in  the  school.  Genera- 
tion after  generation  of  schoolmistresses  had  starved 
them,  and  physicked  them,  and  snubbed  them,  and 
snarled  at  them,  and  sneaked  of  them  to  the  master 
for  every  little  trumpery  fault,  and  made  them  to  know 
how  blessed  a  thing  it  is  to  be  the  recipient  of  a  char- 
ity, and  how  high  the  privilege  of  being  boarded  and 
educated  "  free." 

Periodically,  when  some  speculator  of  a  more  adven- 
turous turn  than  usual  had  charge  of  the  farm,  the  del- 
icate attentions  paid  to  the  founder's  boys  were  apt  to 
be  overdone,  and  a  case  which  would  have  been  given 
as  manslaughter  against  any  one  else  but  a  schoolmaster 
attracted  public  notice  for  awhile.  But  now,  at  the 
period  of  Mr.  Goggs's  appointment,  all  that  sort  of 
thing  was  happily  exploded.  No  clergyman  could 
venture  in  these  days  to  ill  treat  a  pupil ;  and  if  any 
founder's  boy  at  Dumplington  had  dared  to  tell  his 
friends  that  he  was  not  fed  like  a  prince  and  petted 
like  a  poodle,  the  ungrateful  little  wretch  would  have 
had  his  ears  well  boxed,  and  have  been  sent  back  to 
school  at  the  end  of  the  holidays  with  a  basket  of 
game  for  his  kind  master  and  a  sucking-pig  for  his 
kind  mistress,  and  a  letter  expressing  the  deep  sense 
which  his  parents  entertained  of  the  affectionate  soli- 
citude of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Goggs. 

Among  those  who  had  committed  their  sons  to  Mr. 
Goggs's   care  were  Mr.  Nightshade,  the   undertaker, 


BREAD    TO    THE  HUNGRY.  85 

Mr.  Teasel,  the  lawyer,  and  Captain  Northcote,  R.N., 
of  Aleworth,  near  Dumplington.     Mr.  Nightshade,  as 
a  tradesman  in  the  town,  had  a  right  to  a  free  nomina- 
tion for  his  boy.     Mr.  Teasel,  in  virtue  of  his  long 
residence,  enjoyed  an  equal  right,  if  he  had  chosen  to 
press  it ;  but  the  founder's  boys,  with  casual  exceptions 
here  and  there,  had  from  time  immemorial  been  held 
in  such  contempt  by  the  rest  of  the  school  that  it  an- 
swered the  lawyer's  purpose  better  to  send  his  son  as  a 
day-scholar,  paying  for  his  education,   in   return  for 
having  jobbed  the  head-master  into  office,  less  than 
half  the  customary  charge.    Captain  Northcote  was  not 
specially  fond  of  Mr.  Goggs,  though  he  failed  perhaps 
to  see  through  his  pious  relation  with  his  wonted  acute- 
ness ;   but  there  were  two  good  and  sufficient  reasons 
why  he  should  select  Dumplington  Grammar-School 
for  his  son.     In   the  first  place,  his  wife  had   labored 
under  the  delusion,  by  which  many  fond  mothers  are 
afflicted,  that  public  schools  are  hells  upon  earth,  where 
one  half  of  the  smaller  boys  catch  malignant  fever,  and 
the  other  half  are  roasted  alive.     She  had   implored, 
therefore,  just  before  she  died,  that  the  precious  child 
she  was  leaving  behind  her  might  never  be  subjected 
to  such  perils ;  and  her  husband  was  not  the  sort  of 
man   to  forget,  any  number  of  years  afterwards,  that 
such  a  request  had  been  made.     Much  as  he  wished  it, 
he  could  not  bring  himself  to  send  Harry  to  a  public 
school;    and,  if  he  must  descend   to  an   academy,   it 
seemed  only  gracious  to  do  a  neighborly  turn  for  Mr. 
Goggs,  who,  but  for  an  unlucky  chance,  might  now  be 
in  possession  of  half  the  fortune  left  to  his  boy  by  the 
old  brewer.     Thus  it  came  to  pa^s  that   Harry  North- 


86  MR.   GOGGS  GIVES 

cote  went  to  Dumplington  to  be  farmed  ;  where  his 
father,  by  stipulating  that  he  should  have  cold  meat  or 
an  egg  for  breakfast,  made  an  excuse  to  pay  for  his 
schooling  a  hundred  and  fifty  guineas  a  year. 

These  three  boys  were  continual  objects  of  petty 
spitefulness  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Goggs :  Harry  North- 
cote,  because  he  had  choused  them  out  of  a  legacy; 
Frank  Teasel,  because  his  father  only  paid  five  pounds 
a  year  ;  and  Willie  Nightshade,  because  he  was  on  the 
foundation,  and  his  father  paid  nothing  at  all.  It  is 
only  fair  to  say  that  each  of  the  three  manifested  a 
touching  appreciation  of  favors  conferred,  and  led 
their  indulgent  master  and  mistress  such  a  life  that  Mr. 
Goggs  was  under  the  habitual  necessity  of  strengthen- 
ing himself  with  bottled  porter  before  going  into  school, 
while  the  nerves  of  his  invalid  wife  were  so  perpetually 
unstrung  as  to  render  beef-tea  and  calves' -foot  jelly 
essential  at  all  hours  of  the  day,  and  force  her  poor 
weak  system  to  undergo  the  stimulating  influence  of 
port  wine,  before  she  could  summon  up  energy  enough 
to  ladle  out  the  hash  at  dinner. 

Port  wine  was  not  the  only  luxury  with  which  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Goggs  had  the  good  taste  to  set  the  boys' 
mouths  watering  at  meal-time.  When  they  first  began 
farming,  and  still  retained  some  of  the  foolish  sensitive- 
ness of  ordinary  beings,  they  had  been  accustomed  to 
eat  a  bit  of  bread  and  cheese  in  the  dining-hall  at  one 
o'clock,  and  dine  by  themselves  in  the  evening.  The 
servants,  however,  grumbled  at  the  late  dinner;  and  an 
invaluable  cook,  who  was  wont  to  salt  the  boiled  beef 
so  effectually  that  the  boys  could  not  possibly  eat  more 
than  one  helping  of  it,  and  had  a  knack  of  swelling 


BREAD    TO    THE  HUNGRY.  87 

out  the  grains  of  rice  till  they  were  almost  as  big  as 
beans,  gave  warning  to  leave  that  day  month.  But, 
before  even  that  day  fortnight  arrived,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Goggs  had  foregone  their  evening  banquet,  and  were 
dining  at  one  o'clock  in  the  hall. 

"It  will  be  very  awkward,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs. 
Goggs.  "  We  have  a  roast  duck  for  dinner  to-day,  and 
the  boys  will  be  sure  to  smell  it." 

"  Let  'em  smell  it !"  returned  Mr.  Goggs,  angry  at 
the  loss  of  his  quiet  meal,  and  rapidly  becoming  har- 
dened in  the  little  refinements  of  his  calling.  "Let 
'em  smell  it.  It's  very  wholesome  for  them.  There's 
nothing  so  good  for  little  boys  as  to  smell  something 

nice,  and  have  to  eat  something  nas 1  mean,  ar — 

something  nutritious  and — ar satisfying.      Depend 

upon  it,  my  dear,  a  child  cannot  begin  too  soon  to  con- 
quer his  appetite,  and  put  a  restraint  upon  his  vile  affec- 
tions. But  the  second  bell  is  ringing.  Let  us  go  into 
the  hall,  and  ask  a  blessing  upon  our  simple  meal." 

The  simple  meal  consisted  of  a  cut  of  salmon,  with 
cue  umber  and  Lobster  sauce  ;  followed  by  a  roast  duck, 
with  green  peas  and  salad,  and  bitter  beer.  The  boys, 
who  had  been  playing  cricket  under  a  broiling  sun  for 
three-quarters  of  an  hour,  were  refreshed  by  some  highly 
desirable  soup,  manufactured  by  the  invaluable  cook 
out  of  hot  water,  dripping,  pearl  barley,  salt,  and  pep- 
per. After  this,  they  fed  sumptuously  on  veal  pie,  the 
crust  of  which  no  mortal  teeth  could  penetrate,  while 
the  meat  was  contributed  by  a  calf  of  so  remarkable 
a  texture  that  you  felt  as  if  the  creature  must  have  died 
hard,  and  wondered  whether  the  entire  animal,  hide, 
hoofs,  and  incipient  horns,  had  been  made  to  minister 


88  MR.   GOGGS   GIVES 

to  your  bodily  sustenance.  There  was  no  pudding,  it 
being  a  "soup"  day;  but,  in  place  thereof,  the  boys 
were  permitted  to  sit  in  silence  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour, 
contemplating  the  Rev.  Mr.  Goggs  as  he  devoured,  with 
much  noise  and  unclean  feeding,  a  hundred  or  so  of 
asparagus,  cut  from  the  garden  for  his  especial  gratifica- 
tion. When  this  was  finished,  he  and  his  wife  con- 
sumed between  them  a  sweet  omelet,  making  over  to 
the  two  ushers  a  suet-pudding,  flavored  with  an  infini- 
tesimal quantity  of  gooseberry  jam ;  after  which  a 
double  Gloucester  cheese  was  set  upon  the  table,  and 
the  boys,  at  a  given  signal,  rose  and  returned  thanks 
for  what  they  had  received,  and  what  they  had  smelt, 
and  what  they  had  hungrily  wished  for,  and  what  they 
certainly  would  never  get,  so  long  as  Mr.  Goggs  con- 
tinued to  be  their  farmer,  and  his  amiable  lady  vouch- 
safed to  exercise  over  them  her  more  than  maternal 
care. 

This  maternal  care  was  never  more  judiciously  dis- 
played than  when  any  of  the  younger  boys  received  a 
"grub  parcel"  from  home.  Those  only  who  have 
themselves  been  boys  at  a  good,  big  school  can  possi- 
bly imagine  the  intense  delight  with  which  the  hamper 
is  discovered  in  the  passage  after  breakfast,  and  is  car- 
ried off  to  some  quiet  spot,  and  opened  with  the  pro- 
prietor's own  hands,  while  its  contents  are  impatiently 
stripped  of  the  paper  in  which  the  neat  housekeeper 
has  enveloped  them,  and  are  transferred  to  the  play- 
box,  to  be  distributed  at  convenient  seasons  among  a 
select  company  of  friends.  But  Mrs.  Goggs  did  not 
appreciate  any  such  delights  as  these.  So,  when  a 
parcel   arrived   at  Dumplington,  packed  carefully  by 


BREAD   TO    THE  HUNGRY.  89 

some  little  fellow's  mother,  in  anticipation  of  the  glee 
with  which  he  would  cut  the  string  with  his  broken 
knife,  and  dive  into  the  depths  of  his  treasure  to  search 
out  the  tongue,  and  make  sure  whether  there  really  was 
a  cold  plum-pudding  after  all,  the  considerate  school- 
mistress would  save  him  the  trouble  by  opening  the 
hamper  herself,  and  telling  the  child  a  day  or  two  after- 
wards, when  the  cake  was  stale,  that  he  might  have 
half  of  it  at  the  end  of  the  week,  if  he  were  a  good 
boy. 

"Northcote,"  she  said  one  morning  after  prayers, 
"  a  parcel  came  for  you  yesterday.  I  suppose  you  have 
been  writing  home  and  telling  your  father  that  you 
don't  get  enough  to  eat  and  drink  at  school,  haven't 
you?" 

Harry  could  not  say  that  he  hadn't,  and  he  did  not 
dare  to  say  that  he  had;  so  he  said  nothing,  and  left 
Mrs.  Goggs  to  infer  just  whatever  she  pleased. 

"Ah,  I  thought  so,"  she  whined  out,  as  if  she  were 
a  victim  of  the  grossest  ingratitude,  and  altogether 
cruelly  misunderstood.  "  I  am  sure  you  have  the  best 
of  everything,  and  I  don't  approve  of  your  being  made 
bilious  by  all  these  luxuries  from  home.  There  are 
some  apples  at  the  top  of  the  hamper  which  you  can 
have  this  evening  if  you  like;  and  if  you  will  come 
and  ask  me  to-morrow,  just  before  dinner,  I  will  give 
you  part  of  the  cake."  But  Harry  Northcote,  though 
he  liked  cake  as  much  as  any  other  boy,  and  was  dying 
of  curiosity  to  see  his  hamper,  would  rather  go  without 
food  for  the  rest  of  his  life  than  ask  Mrs.  Goggs  for  it. 
There  was  not  one  single  fellow  in  thes<  hool  who  would 
approach  within  sight  of  the  woman,  if  he  could  possibly 


go  MR.  GOGGS   GIVES 

keep  away.  The  boys  would  endure  any  amount  of 
pain  rather  than  go  up  to  her  and  say  that  they  were 
ill  ;  not  for  fear  of  medicine,  but  for  fear  of  her  dis- 
agreeable grating  voice  and  horrid  scowl.  Delicate 
little  fellows  would  shiver  in  their  drenched  socks  till 
bedtime,  rather  than  ask  her  to  let  them  go  up-stairs 
and  change ;  not  because  they  dreaded  the  inevitable 
five  hundred  lines  apiece,  when  she  had  reported  them 
to  the  master  for  getting  wet,  but  because  they  would 
not  face  her  repulsive  visage,  and  subject  themselves  to 
one  of  her  odious  "jaws."  Harry  Northcote,  there- 
fore, left  her  to  do  with  his  hamper  precisely  as  she 
chose  ;  but  he  begged  his  father,  when  he  went  home 
for  the  holidays,  to  bring  his  next  "grub  parcel"  into 
Dumplington  himself,  and  deliver  it  with  his  own  hands, 
instead  of  sending  it  by  the  carrier. 

These  little  contrivances  for  keeping  their  pupils  in 
good  health  and  in  a  wholesome  state  of  discipline  were 
not,  however,  always  so  successful.  It  happened  on  a 
certain  half  holiday,  about  a  year  after  Harry  had  gone 
to  school,  that  Frank  Teasel,  when  he  went  home  to 
dinner,  got  leave  to  take  two  of  his  friends  with  him, 
to  spend  the  afternoon.  When  the  boys  had  finished 
supper,  and  were  getting  up  to  say  good-by,  Mrs. 
Teasel,  who  would  have  stripped  the  gown  off  her  back 
to  give  a  hungry  child  a  dinner,  insisted  on  their  carry- 
ing off  with  them  such  portable  dainties  from  the  table 
as  their  pockets  would  hold.  Harry  stowed  away  half 
a  dozen  oranges,  and  about  a  pound  of  brawn  ;  while 
the  other  boy  contented  himself  with  a  good -sized  piece 
of  cheese,  a  French  roll,  and  a  few  slices  of  ham — both 
of  them  reluctantly  admitting,  after  much  earnest  con- 


BREAD    TO    THE  HUNGRY. 


9* 


sideration  of  the  matter,  that  the  apple-pie  and  stewed 
pears  could  not  be  conveniently  disposed  of,  and  must 
be  left  behind.  When  they  reached  the  school,  Mr. 
Goggs  met  them  in  the  passage,  asked  them  what  they 
were  carrying,  declared  that  he  would  not  allow  such 
messes  to  be  brought  into  his  house,  took  all  the  spoil 
away,  and  bestowed  it  in  the  morning  upon  the  shoe- 
black— a  wretched  youth  who,  for  about  eighteen  pence 
a  week,  brushed — not  to  say  cleaned — the  boots  of  the 
entire  establishment,  besides  filling  coal-scuttles,  draw- 
ing water,  and  doing  an  infinity  of  odd  jobs  in  the 
garden.  When  school  was  over,  Frank  went  to  his 
father's  office,  and  told  him  all  about  it ;  and  in  the 
course  of  half  an  hour  Mr.  Teasel  and  Mr.  Goggs  were 
exchanging  compliments  in  the  latter  gentleman's  study, 
in  a  tone  of  voice  so  loud  that  the  boys  could  hear 
almost  every  word  that  passed  between  them. 

"  It's  as  clear  a  case  of  stealing,  sir,"  said  the  lawyer, 
"as  ever  I  heard  of;  and  I'll  trouble  you  to  make  resti- 
tution. If  you  don't,  you  shall  be  proceeded  against 
just  as  any  other  thief,  by  George  you  shall !" 

"  Stealing  !"  echoed  the  schoolmaster,  lifting  up  his 
hands,  but  not  to  bless  his  visitor.  "Stealing  !  You 
forget  yourself,  sir.  I  am  a  minister  of  religion.  It  is 
my  place  to  preach  to  you,  that  you  should  not  steal. 
For,  what  saith  the  Scripture?  Woe  unto  you,  law- 
yers  " 

'  Now  look  here,  Mr.  Goggs.  We  won't  have  any 
of  that,  if  you  please.  It's  bad  enough  to  be  forced  to 
sit  it  out  on  a  Sunday  ;  but  I'll  be  shot  if  I  stand  it  on 
a  weekday.  Lawyers,  indeed  !  why,  if  I  had  not  a 
clearer  conscience  than  you  have,  with  fifty  half-starved 


02 


MR.   GOGGS   GIVES 


children  on  your  hands,  I'd  turn  watchman,  for  it 
wouldn't  be  a  bit  of  good  to  go  to  bed  at  night.  The 
case  is  simple  enough.  I  have  given  to  two  young  gen- 
tlemen, my  guests,  certain  articles  of  food  from  my 
table.  You,  with  consummate  impudence,  have  taken 
the  said  articles  away,  and  have  given  them  to  some- 
body else.  Now,  I  don't  grudge  the  wretched  shoe- 
black his  breakfast.  You  may  take  your  oath  it's  the 
first  time  he  has  tasted  anything  nice  since  he  has 
been  in  your  employment ;  unless,  indeed,  you  have 
been  carrying  on  these  little  clerical  pilferings  before. 
Besides,  I'll  be  bound  to  say  that  Mrs.  Goggs  will  de- 
duct the  value  of  the  food  from  the  poor  beggar's 
wages.  But  I  don't  choose  to  be  made  a  fool  of;  and, 
what  is  more,  I  don't  choose  to  see  two  schoolboys 
deliberately  robbed.  I  haven't  much  idea  what  the 
things  may  have  been  worth — I  suppose  about  a  couple 
of  shillings.  You  give  the  two  boys  a  shilling  apiece, 
and  apologize  to  me  or  to  my  wife  for  appropriating  our 
gifts,  and  we  will  say  no  more  about  it.  Otherwise, 
I'll  be  hanged  if  I  don't  bring  an  action." 

"  Your  language,  sir,"  observed  Mr.  Goggs,  who  was 
white  with  rage,  "  is  that  of  an  unhappy  man,  who  has 
not  yet  learned  to  bring  his  temper  into  subjection. 
The  unregenerate  nature " 

"All  right,  old  chap.  You  can  put  that  into  your 
next  discourse,  and  make  your  '  message  of  love'  extra 
charitable  thereby.  Only  don't  let  us  have  it  here. 
The  question  is,  not  whether  you  are  more  regenerate 
than  I  am,  or  whether,  which  is  probable  enough,  we 
are  both  going  to  the  bad  together ;  not  whether  farm- 
ing a  set  of  hungry  helpless  boys  is  a  lawful  and  godly 


BREAD    TO    THE  HUNGRY. 


93 


trade,  and  making  a  fair  profit  out  of  silly  clients,  who 
at  any  rate  are  old  enough  to  protect  themselves,  is 
fiendish  and  detestable.  But  the  question  is,  are  you 
going  to  pay  these  youths  the  value  of  their  oranges 
and  rolls,  and  apologize  to  me  or  my  wife  for  stealing 
them?" 

"Certainly  not,  sir,"  answered  the  schoolmaster, 
with  an  assumption  of  dignity  which  did  not  impress 
his  visitor  with  any  considerable  awe.  "  Certainly  and 
most  emphatically  not.  Think,  sir,  how  I  should  for- 
feit my  authority!  Consider  the  discipline  which,  in 
humble  dependence  upon  divine  grace,  it  is  my  duty 
to  maintain  !     No,  sir,  I  cannot  apologize." 

"Then  you  shall  be  prosecuted  as  a  thief,"  said  the 
lawyer,  putting  on  his  hat,  and  opening  the  door. 
"And  if  your  authority  has  to  be  upheld  by  prigging 
cold  meat  and  bread  and  cheese  out  of  your  pupils' 
pockets,  I  don't  think  much  of  it.  The  day  after  to- 
morrow, sir,  I  go  to  town  on  business,  and  my  wife 
goes  with  me ;  but  we  shall  both  be  at  home  again  this 
day  week :  so  I  give  you  until  that  time  to  think  the 
matter  over.  Good-morning,  Mr.  Goggs.  Pray  don't 
come  out.  A  thief,  mind.  It's  a  criminal  case,  not  a 
civil  action.    As  a  thief,  Mr.  Goggs — a  common  thief." 


94  MR.  GOGGS  KEEPS  COMPANY 


CHAPTER    IX. 

MR.  GOGGS  KEEPS  COMPANY  WITH  HIS  PIG. 

Harry  Northcote  had  rather  a  rough  time  of  it  in 
school  that  afternoon,  for  his  conscientious  master  took 
unusual  pains  to  improve  his  mind.  Mr.  Goggs's  notion 
of  teaching  was,  to  say  the  least,  peculiar.  The  boys 
lolled  on  a  form  in  front  of  him,  with  their  heads  be- 
tween their  knees,  and  their  legs  spread  out  in  readi- 
ness to  telegraph  gentle  kicks  to  one  another,  or  to 
trip  up  on  his  journey  any  young  gentleman  who  might 
be  so  far  favored  as  to  be  sent  to  the  top  of  the  class, 
or  so  far  spited  as  to  be  sent  to  the  bottom.  While 
Mr.  Goggs  was  looking  out  words  in  the  dictionary, 
which  his  imperfect  memory,  or  defective  education  in 
the  learned  tongues,  obliged  him  to  do  continually, 
there  was  a  general  bear-fight  until  the  correct  "render- 
ing" had  been  ascertained.  If  his  attention  were  fixed 
for  a  time  on  one  end  of  the  row,  the  lads  at  the  other 
end  exchanged  salutations,  after  the  manner  of  school- 
boys, by  pulling  their  neighbor's  hair,  upsetting  one 
another  off  the  form,  and  manifesting  other  signs  of 
playfulness ;  until  the  master,  poor  fool,  suddenly 
woke  up  from  his  state  of  abstraction,  and  turned  round 
with  an  intimation  that  there  was  "rather  too  much 
noise."     Rather    too    much   noise!     Probably    there 


WITH  HIS  PIG. 


95 


might  be.  It  was  one  incessant  hubbub  all  day  long. 
Mr.  Goggs  had  about  as  good  an  idea  of  keeping  boys 
in  order  as  he  had  of  keeping  the  stars  in  their  courses. 
And  here  it  may  be  parenthetically  observed  that  the 
schoolmaster  who  is  a  bully,  and  a  farmer,  and  a  screw, 
is  perfectly  certain  to  be  a  bad  teacher  as  well.  You 
might  naturally  suppose  it  to  be  otherwise.  You  might 
think  that  one  who  is  severe  in  exacting  impositions 
would  be  severe  and  strict  all  round ;  that  he  who  is  a 
brute  in  his  punishments  would  frighten  the  boys  into 
doing  their  best  in  school ;  and  that  a  man  who  hai 
made  his  pupils  hate  the  very  sound  of  his  voice  would 
at  any  rate  have  the  faculty  of  maintaining  discipline. 
But  it  is  not  so.  The  sympathizing,  kindly,  genial 
master,  who  would  give  his  eyes  to  be  a  boy  again ; 
who  delights  in  his  work,  for  the  interest  it  brings  him, 
and  towards  whom,  in  his  boyish  troubles,  every  little 
fellow  turns  as  towards  a  home  friend  :  this  is  the  man 
who  keeps  order  in  school,  and  gets  his  lessons  learned, 
and  makes  his  pupils  scholars.  Boys  do  not  dare  to 
trifle  with  .such  a  man,  because  they  can  see  that  he 
means  business,  and  will  be  minded;  and  they  would 
not  trifle  with  him  if  they  dared,  because  he  has  won 
their  hearts  by  showing  that  he  understands  them,  and 
by  treating  them  as  Christian  boys,  as  reasonable  beings, 
and  as  gentlemen.  But  the  modern  clerical  representa- 
tive of  Mr.  Wackford  Squeers — the  man  who  keeps  a 
school  just  as  he  might  keep  a  shop,  and  would  embark 
in  some  other  business  to-morrow  if  he  thought  he  could 
make  a  pound  or  two  more  ;  the  farmer,  who  has  a  flock 
of  boys  to  get  his  living  by,  but,  so  long  as  they  pay 
him  well,  does  not  care  whether  they  feed  or  starve; 


96  MR.   GOGGS  KEEPS  COMPANY 

such  a  one  as  this  may  scatter  his  pupils  into  corners 
at  the  sound  of  his  footstep,  or  drive  the  blood  from 
their  cheeks  by  the  rapping  of  his  cane,  but  he  will 
never  terrify  them  into  showing  him  the  commonest 
respect,  and,  what  is  more,  he  will  never  get  them  to 
do  half  an  hour's  honest  work  for  him  in  school. 

Mr.  Goggs's  mood  varied  according  to  the  time  of 
day.  Before  breakfast  he  was  cold  and  cross,  and 
much  disposed  to  quicken  circulation  both  in  himself 
and  others  by  a  plentiful  use  of  the  stick.  After  break- 
fast he  was  uniformly  dyspeptic,  the  kidneys  and 
sausages  and  pigs'  feet  which  the  boys  had  seen  him 
eat,  as  they  wrestled  with  their  lumps  of  bread  and  tal- 
low, not  agreeing  with  him  so  early  in  the  morning. 
Towards  the  middle  of  the  day,  however,  he  brightened 
up,  and  essayed  to  remember  a  good  many  very  stale 
and  very  mild  jokes,  at  which  he  himself  laughed  pro- 
digiously, becoming  very  angry  if  the  whole  form  did 
not  laugh  as  well.  After  dinner  he  went  to  sleep  and 
dropped  his  book,  at  which  signal  the  boys  played  the 
fool  till  he  woke  up  again  ;  which  he  generally  did  just 
as  two  young  gentlemen  were  in  the  act  of  changing 
jackets,  or  indulging  in  a  quiet  game  of  beggar-my- 
neighbor  behind  another  young  gentleman's  back. 
Then  he  rose  like  a  giant  refreshed,  and  laid  about 
him  manfully,  almost  always  thrashing  the  wrong  boys; 
after  which  he  stood  up  to  a  great  blackboard  with  a 
piece  of  chalk  in  his  hand,  and  became  so  hopelessly 
involved  in  blundering  through  a  proposition  in  Euclid 
that  the  boys  gave  him  up  in  despair,  and  simply 
yawned  in  his  face,  taking  their  chance  of  his  fury. 
This  was  the  man  in  whom  the  trustees  of  Woodruff's 


WITH  HIS  PIG.  9  7 

Charity  had  secured  a  veritable  treasure  ;  of  whom 
examiners,  twice  every  year,  made  flattering  reports; 
to  whom  parents  wrote  gushing  letters,  brimful  of  con- 
fidence in  his  management  of  their  darlings.  "A 
most  excellent  schoolmaster,"  said  all  the  good  folks 
at  Dumplington  ;  "  admirably  fitted  for  his  post.  And 
as  for  Mrs.  Goggs,  there  never  was  a  woman  like  her. 
She  absolutely  devotes  herself  to  the  boys."  Poor 
little  beggars!  she  did,  indeed.  Devoted  herself  to 
interfering  with  every  pleasure  they  could  possibly 
enjoy;  devoted  herself  to  the  weighing  out  of  every 
ounce  they  swallowed,  and  every  coal  that  was  burned 
to  keep  the  fire  alight  in  their  schoolroom  stove.  If 
she  had  cut  their  scraps  of  beef  a  little  bigger,  and 
"devoted  herself"  a  little  less,  it  might  have  been 
better  for  them — and  for  her.  And  if  the  "excellent 
schoolmaster"  had  insisted  on  having  his  work  done 
properly  when  it  was  time  to  work,  and  set  fewer  im- 
positions when  it  was  time  to  play,  his  boys  would  have 
looked  healthier  and  happier,  and  he  himself  would 
have  earned  his  money  from  their  parents  more  like  an 
honest  man. 

"Northcote!"  shouted  Mr.  Goggs,  before  breakfast 
on  the  morning  after  Mr.  Teasel's  threat  of  legal  pro- 
ceedings,— "  Northcote  !  what  are  you  doing?" 

"Nothing,  sir,"  said  Harry,  looking  innocently  up 
from  his  book,  on  the  fly-leaf  of  which  he  was  sketch- 
ing Mr.^.  Goggs,  as  she  appeared  in  her  garden  bonnet, 
stooping  down  to  sort  out  rotten  apples  for  the  boys' 
dinner. 

"Then  write  out  five  hundred  lines,  for  doing 
nothing.     You  ought  to  be  learning  your  Ovid." 

7 


98  MR.   GOGGS  KEEPS  COMPANY 

"Please,  sir,  I've  got  fifteen  hundred  to  do  already." 

"Then  you  must  stop  in  till  they  are  finished,"  said 
Mr.  Goggs.  "  If  they  are  not  all  shown  up  by  Monday 
morning  at  nine  o'clock,  you  will  be  caned." 

"Oh,  please,  sir,"  expostulated  Harry,  giving  the 
final  touch  to  Mrs.  Goggs's  legs,  which  he  had  fash- 
ioned after  a  decidedly  bucolic  type,  and  displayed  in 
all  their  native  elegance  so  far  as  was  consistent  with 
propriety. 

"Bring  me  that  book  directly,"  said  Mr.  Goggs, 
opening  his  desk,  and  fumbling  about  for  a  good  strong 
cane. 

Harry  took  this  opportunity  to  open  his  desk,  and 
bring  out  another  book,  which  he  presented  to  his 
intelligent  relative,  who  was  none  the  wiser.  This 
volume  was  also  embellished  with  illustrations,  but 
they  were  chiefly  profiles  of  schoolfellows,  or  scenes 
from  the  tranquil  life  of  the  Dumplington  French  Mas- 
ter. Mr.  Goggs  tore  out  the  leaves,  and  crumpled 
them  up,  after  which  he  flew  at  Harry,  and  crumpled 
him  up,  forcing  the  poor  boy's  body  into  such  a  posi- 
tion that  all  the  blows  fell  foul,  some  on  his  thigh, 
some  on  his  shoulders,  and  some  on  his  head. 

"I'll  teach  you,  sir!"  said  Mr.  Goggs,  hissing  out 
the  well-known  formula,  as  the  boy,  too  proud  to  cry, 
but  too  sorely  wounded  to  walk  straight,  staggered 
back  to  his  seat.  And  all  this,  because  Mrs.  Teasel 
had  given  him  some  oranges  and  brawn. 

After  breakfast  the  schoolmaster  went  at  him  again. 

"Northcote,"  said  he,  "Mrs.  Goggs  reports  you 
for  leaving  a  quantity  of  crumbs  in  your  bed  this 
morning.     What  have  you  been  eating  up-stairs?" 


WITH  HIS  PIG.  99 

"Only  a  few  biscuits,  sir,  that  I  had  in  my 
pocket." 

"You  know  very  well  that  it  is  against  the  rules," 
said  Mr.  Goggs,  "  to  eat  anything  in  your  bedroom. 
You  get  plenty  of  good  food  at  meal-times,  and  if  you 
want  more,  you  have  only  to  ask  for  it.  Why  didn't 
you  tell  Mrs.  Goggs  that  you  were  hungry?" 

Harry  scarcely  knew  which  idea  was  the  most  ridic- 
ulous— that  of  getting  good  food  in  hall,  of  asking  for 
anything  extra,  or  of  volunteering  for  any  purpose 
whatever  to  approach  Mrs.  Goggs.  So  he  laughed  at 
all  three  ideas,  and  more  than  half  the  school  laughed 
with  him. 

"Come  here,  sir!"  cried  the  master,  in  a  rage. 
"How  dare  you  giggle  in  my  face?  Hold  out  your 
hand!" 

What  with  fives,  and  cricket,  and  rounders,  and 
various  other  uses  to  which  they  were  applied,  Harry 
Northcote's  hands  were  tolerably  well  seasoned ;  and 
yet  Mr.  Goggs  contrived  to  cut  them  both  open,  and 
set  them  bleeding,  and  maim  the  boy's  fingers  to  an 
extent  which  effectually  prevented  the  writing  of  im- 
positions, at  any  rate  for  that  day.  Bless  your  soft 
heart,  dear  reader,  there  is  no  cruelty  practiced  in 
modern  schools !  Nobody  nowadays  is  fool  enough 
to  believe  that  a  master  ever  ill  treats  a  boy  !  Your 
boy  will  say  that  he  has  been  unjustly  punished,  of 
course  ;  but  he  is  an  interested  witness,  and  boys  tell 
such  shocking  lies.  Ask  the  schoolmaster.  He  is  a 
clergyman,  you  know,  and  you  will  get  the  truth  from 
him.  He  i  an  have  no  possible  interest  in  making  him- 
self out  to  be  the  kindest  and  most  patient  of  men. 


ioo  MR.  GOGGS  KEEPS  COMPANY 

Ask  him  whether  his  very  soul  does  not  overflow  with 
tenderness  and  loving  care.  He  will  set  your  mind  at 
rest  in  a  moment.  The  boy's  wicked  misrepresenta- 
tions will  recoil  upon  his  own  head,  and  he  will  be 
thoroughly  well  thrashed  again,  as  a  warning  to  his 
schoolfellows,  for  telling  tales. 

Harry  could  not  hold  his  knife  and  fork  at  dinner, 
so  Mrs.  Goggs  cut  up  his  greasy  mutton  for  him. 
What  a  kind  motherly  woman  she  was !  Who  else 
would  have  taken  such  trouble  for  a  good-for-nothing 
lad  who  was  always  whistling  along  the  passage,  and 
banging  doors,  and  shattering  her  delicate  nerves  ? 

In  the  afternoon  Harry  had  a  visitor — a  most  wel- 
come visitor.  Tom  Pippin,  who  lived  a  few  miles  off, 
had  driven  into  Dumplington  on  business ;  and  at  five 
o'clock  Harry  found  him  waiting  outside  the  school- 
room door.  Tom  Pippin  was  mincing  and  affected 
with  men  and  women,  but  he  was  always  genuine  with 
boys.  The  Dumplington  fellows  delighted  in  him ; 
not  because  he  tipped  them,  and  brought  them  good 
things  to  eat,  or  even  because  he  was  such  a  "  tremen- 
dous swell"  at  cricket,  could  run  a  mile  in  four  minutes 
and  fifty  seconds,  and  jump  a  foot  higher  than  any 
chap  in  the  school.  But  they  liked  him  because  he 
was  a  "regular  downright  jolly  brick;"  and  if  the 
reader  does  not  know  what  that  means,  he  had  better 
go  to  school  again,  for  there  is  no  other  place  where 
he  can  possibly  learn.  Tom  remembered  his  boy- 
English — that  lovely  dialect  which  most  of  us  forget 
as  soon  as  our  beards  begin  to  grow.  Tom  understood 
boys  and  their  ways ;  made  himself  a  boy  among  them ; 
imagined  it   just  conceivable  that  they  might  have  a 


WITH  HIS  PIG.  IOi 

grain  or  two  of  sense ;  and  did  not  sneer  at  them  and 
snub  them  because  they  were  a  few  years  younger  than 
himself.  And  so  they  loved  him  ;  but  Harry  North- 
cote  loved  him  best  of  all.  Tom  was  his  very  especial 
friend — his  model — his  hero.  In  Harry's  eyes,  Tom 
could  do  everything  better  than  any  one  else  that  ever 
was  born.  In  Tom's  eyes,  Harry  was  the  noblest  boy 
that  ever  breathed  ;  and  if  he  had  chanced  to  come  to 
the  schoolroom  door  at  ten  o'clock  instead  of  at  five,  and 
had  seen  Mr.  Goggs  thrashing  his  young  friend,  Mr. 
Goggs's  farming  days  would  probably  have  been  brought 
to  a  somewhat  abrupt  conclusion. 

Tom  was  not  alone,  for  he  took  about  with  him, 
wherever  he  went,  an  enormous  dog,  which  he  had  long 
ago  given  to  Harry,  but  which  he  was  keeping  for  the 
boy  until  he  had  left  school.  Nobody  knew  much 
about  the  creature's  breed  ;  but  Tom  had  brought  him 
from  Russia,  and  he  was  supposed  to  have  passed  his 
dog-infancy  in  chasing  wolves.  Now  that  he  was  full 
grown,  he  was  fit  to  chase  a  tiger ;  and  the  very  wag- 
ging of  his  tail  displayed  a  muscularity  which  kept  you 
at  a  respectful  distance  behind  him.  Many  and  many 
a  happy  day  had  his  young  master  spent  in  romping  with 
him,  when  staying  at  Tom's  little  country-house  in  the 
holidays.  For  Harry  always  passed  a  week  at  Chrismas 
and  midsummer  with  his  friend,  and  enjoyed  his  visit  as 
only  a  boy  of  fourteen  knows  how.  It  is  the  fashion 
with  some  people  to  pretend  that  anybody,  if  he  pleases, 
<  an  be  thoroughly  happy  anywhere;  that  money,  and 
kind  friends,  and  dogs,  and  ponies,  have  nothing  to  do 
with  real  enjoyment,  but  that  the  eldest  of  eleven  chil- 
dren, with  a  slice  of  bread  and  dripping  for  his  tea, 


102  MR.   GOGGS  KEEPS   COMPANY 

and  only  his  father's  worn-out  clothes  to  wear,  is  capa- 
ble of  supporting  existence  quite  as  cheerfully  as  the 
juvenile  possessor  of  all  juvenile  good  things.  You 
often  hear  such  theories  put  forth  with  great  unction 
from  the  pulpit,  though  you  know  for  certain  all  the 
time  you  listen  that  the  preacher  does  not  believe  a 
word  he  is  saying,  and  that  the  congregation  don't 
believe  a  word  they  hear.  Whether  it  be  wise  and  right 
to  indulge  overmuch  in  the  pleasure  that  money  brings, 
is  another  question  altogether ;  but  to  say  that  money 
does  not  bring  pleasure,  and  downright  real  delightful 
pleasure,  too,  is  to  say  what  is  not  only  untrue,  but 
most  mischievous  besides.  Nothing  can  be  more  likely 
to  make  a  boy  grow  up  selfish  and  luxurious  than  to  tell 
him  that  every  little  country  lad  who  opens  the  gate  for 
him  as  he  rides  past  is  as  well  off  and  as  happy  as  him- 
self; whereas  if  you  teach  him  something,  and  per- 
haps show  him  something,  of  the  hard  hungry  life  of 
the  poor,  there  is  a  chance  that  he  will  give  them 
kind  words  and  sixpences  when  he  is  a  boy,  and  not 
forget  their  struggling  poverty  when  he  becomes  a 
man. 

"Why,  Harry,  old  boy!"  said  Tom,  as  his  friend 
jumped  into  his  arms,  "what's  the  matter  with  your 
hands?"  And  then  Frank  Teasel  and  Willie  Night- 
shade, talking  both  together,  told  him  all  about  it ; 
Harry  finding  that  his  voice  failed  him,  and  that,  though 
he  could  take  his  thrashing  manfully  at  the  time,  he 
could  not  recount  his  sufferings  without  feeling  very 
much  disposed  to  blub.  A  boy  of  fourteen  will  laugh 
at  pain  ;  but  he  will  cry  like  a  little  child  if  you  touch 
his  heart  by  showing  him  kindness. 


WITH  HIS  PIG. 


103 


"The  brute!"  exclaimed  Tom.  "What  will  you 
give  me,  Harry,  to  polish  him  off?" 

"There  he  is,"  said  Frank  Teasel,  as  the  reverend 
schoolmaster  looked  in  at  the  door. 

'  <  What  a  dirty-looking  beggar  ! ' '  observed  Tom,  who, 
though  he  had  often  paid  a  visit  to  the  school,  had 
never  seen  the  master  before.  "Does  he  ever  wash 
himself,  do  you  think?" 

"Wash!"  exclaimed  half  a  dozen  fellows  at  once, 
"not  he  !  You  should  see  his  nails.  And  I  know  for 
a  fact  that  he  makes  one  flannel  shirt  and  two  collars 
last  him  for  a  fortnight." 

"What's  his  name?"  asked  Tom. 

"  Goggs,"  replied  the  boys. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  remember;  but  you  don't  call  him  that, 
I  suppose.     What's  his  nickname?" 

"Nickname!  we  had  no  need  to  give  him  one. 
Why,  Goggs  is  nickname  enough  for  anybody,  isn't 
it?" 

"Ha,  ha!"  laughed  Tom,  delighted.  "  But  I  say, 
Harry,  and  you,  too,  Willie  and  Frank,  I  want  you  to 
come  to  dinner  to-night  at  the  Red  Lion.  By  Jove,  I 
should  like  to  have  the  whole  lot  of  you  ;  but  old  Goggs 
wouldn't  give  leave.      Cut  and  ask  him,  Harry." 

Harry  shook  his  head.  "  Might  as  well  ask  him  to 
jump  a  hurdle,"  he  said  at  last — hitting  upon  the  most 
absurdly  improbable  use  to  which  Mr.  Goggs's  athletic 
frame  could  be  applied. 

"  Tell  him  you  want  to  go  to  a  missionary  meeting," 
suggested  Tom,  who  had  been  made  aware  of  Mr. 
Goggs's  piety. 

"  He  is  going  to  one  himself  to-night,"  said  Frank. 


104  MR.   GOGGS  ICE  EPS   COMPANY 

"  I  saw  the  bills  stuck  up  in  the  town.  Rev.  Goggs  in 
the  chair." 

"The  deuce  he  is!"  said  Tom.  "Let  us  all  be 
taken  serious  and  go.  What  a  lark  it  would  be  to  get 
near  the  door,  and  let  in  a  lot  of  roughs  !" 

"  If  you  kick  up  such  a  thundering  row,"  said  Willie 
Nightshade,  "  he'll  be  in  again,  as  sure  as  fate." 

"Let  him,"  said  Tom.  "If  he  so  much  as  pokes 
his  nose  in  at  the  door,  I  swear  I'll  set  Grab  at  him." 
And  the  words  were  scarcely  off  his  lips,  when  Mr. 
Goggs  appeared. 

"There  is  too  much  noise  in  here,"  observed  that 
gentleman.  "Mrs.  Goggs  is  out  of  health,  and  has 
gone  to  lie  down.  I  shall  give  a  thousand  lines  to  any 
boy  who  makes  any  further  disturbance." 

"Fetch  him  out,  Grab!"  whispered  Tom  Pippin, 
hiding  himself  behind  the  stove,  and  putting  his  mouth 
close  to  the  dog's  ear.     "  Fetch  him  out,  old  fellow!" 

Away  bounded  Grab,  rushing  along  the  whole  row 
of  desks,  upsetting  slates,  exercise-books,  and  diction- 
aries ;  and  away  went  Mr.  Goggs,  down  the  steps,  up 
the  passage,  and  into  the  garden,  where  he  ran  against 
the  shoeblack,  who  was  carrying  two  buckets  full  of 
savory  wash,  intended  for  the  evening  refreshment  of 
Mr.  Goggs' s  pig.  But  the  pig  lost  his  tea.  The  dog 
rolled  over  Mr.  Goggs,  Mr.  Goggs  rolled  over  the  shoe- 
black, and  the  shoeblack  rolled  over  the  buckets  of 
wash ;  and,  when  Tom  Pippin  and  the  boys  arrived 
upon  the  scene,  the  head-master  of  Dumplington  Gram- 
mar-School  was  lying  on  the  ground,  surrounded  by  a 
pool  of  something  which  scarcely  differed  in  appear- 
ance from  the  hashed  mutton  served  out  twice  a  week 


WITH  HIS  PIG.  Io5 

to  his  pupils,  while  the  dog  was  shaking  the  reverend 
gentleman's  coat-collar  between  his  teeth,  and  looking 
as  if  it  would  afford  him  inexpressible  pleasure  to  shake 
his  windpipe  as  well. 

Tom  instantly  called  him  off,  put  on  his  company 
manners,  and  apologized.  "Upon  my  word,  sir,"  he 
began,  "  I'm  doosid  sorry — I  am,  indeed.  Come  away, 
Grab.     I  hope  he  has  not — aw — hurt  you." 

Mr.  Goggs  endeavored  to  explain,  between  his  gasps 
for  breath,  that  it  is  not  nice  to  be  soused  with  pigs' 
wash,  or  pinned  down,  in  the  middle  of  your  own 
garden,  by  a  great  brute  as  big  as  a  heifer.  He  then 
asked  Tom  Pippin  his  business,  and  flatly  refused,  with- 
out any  reservation,  to  permit  the  lads  to  dine  with 
him.  "Certainly  not,  sir,"  he  said.  "Teasel  is  a 
day  boy,  and  may  do  as  his  father  pleases  ;  but  I  should 
not  think  of  allowing  any  indulgence  to  so  unsatisfac- 
tory a  boy  as  Nightshade ;  and  as  for  Northcote,  he 
is  a  disgrace  to  the  school.  Indeed,  I  have  serious 
thoughts  of  expelling  him." 

"  Hooray  !"  cried  Harry,  who  was  looking  on  with 
half  a  dozen  other  fellows,  from  the  garden  door. 

"Boys,  go  away  directly!"  shouted  Mr.  Goggs; 
"you  are  all  out  of  bounds."  And  the  reverend  gen- 
tleman made  as  though  he  would  pursue  them.  But 
Tom  Pippin  telegraphed  a  private  signal  to  Grab,  who 
still  waited  for  orders  beside  him  ;  and  the  dog  put 
himself  at  once  into  a  playful  attitude  which  induced 
the  s<  hoolmaster  to  stay  quietly  where  he  was. 

"Then  —  aw  —  vou  won't — aw  —  let  them  come?" 
said  Tom,  urging  a  last  appeal.  "Aw,  sorry  for  that. 
Hi  ar  there's  a  meeting  at  the  town  hall  to-night.     I'm 


106  MR.   GOGGS  KEEPS   COMPANY 

— aw — fond  of  meetings.  Boys  and  I  were  thinking 
of  aw  looking  in  for  half  an  hour." 

"  I  fear,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Goggs,  as  portentously  as  if 
he  were  pronouncing  some  fellow-creature's  final  doom, 
"  I  fear  that  their  hearts  are  not  yet  sufficiently  under 
the  influence  of  grace  to  enable  them  to  profit  by  any 
godly  exercise." 

"Aw,"  said  Tom,  apologetically,  I  didn't  know." 
And  then  he  added,  out  of  good-natured  consideration 
for  the  boys'  noses  at  tea-time,  "Aw,  don't  presume 
to  advise,  but  aw — think  you'll  be  more  comfortable  if 
I  go  away,  and  leave  you  to — aw — change  your  things." 
Tom  felt  perfectly  certain,  by  the  very  color  of  the 
man's  linen,  that  he  would  sit  down  to  table  just  as  he 
was,  pigs'  wash  and  all.     And  so  he  did. 

"  Well,"  said  Tom  to  his  young  friends,  as  he  passed 
through  the  schoolroom  again,  "I  knew  that  school- 
masters were  very  often  brutes,  but  I  did  think  they 
were  gentlemen.  Good-by,  Harry.  If  that  fellow 
touches  you  again,  Grab  shall  throttle  him.  Come 
along  with  me,  Frank,  and  I'll  give  you  some  food  to 
bring  back  to  these  poor  boys  for  supper.  I  am  sure 
they  won't  be  able  to  eat  any  tea,  if  that  nasty  man 
doesn't  change  his  coat." 

The  nasty  man's  wrath,  when  he  sat  down  in  his 
nastiness,  was  a  thing  terrible  to  behold.  Even  cutlets 
and  tomato-sauce  failed  to  stroke  him  down.  He  was 
by  habit  an  unclean  feeder,  was  Mr.  Goggs ;  flinging 
himself  furiously  upon  his  plate,  as  if  he  would  slaugh- 
ter afresh,  with  angry  knife  and  fork,  the  beast  which 
had  been  sacrificed  that  it  might  minister  to  his  desires. 
He  gobbled  much,  did  Mr.  Goggs,  making  many  noises 


WITH  HIS  PIG. 


107 


with  his  palate  as  he  disposed  of  his  food.  For  econ- 
omy's sake  he  was  denied  a  napkin  ;  so  that  the  exte- 
rior surface  of  his  lips  bore  perpetually  a  marginal 
reference  to  the  work  which  was  going  on  within.  He 
talked,  and  even  drank,  with  his  mouth  full,  quaffing 
beer  after  apple-tart  and  sipping  it  after  salmon.  When 
his  appetite  was  appeased,  he  paraded  with  undue  pub- 
licity his  toothpick,  and  was  at  little  pains  to  conceal 
within  decent  limits  the  outward  and  visible  symptoms 
of  a  weak  digestion.  It  is  very  vulgar  to  describe 
such  disgusting  things,  is  it  not,  dear  reader?  A  man 
must  have  a  thoroughly  plebeian  mind  to  think  of  any- 
thing so  low.  Of  course  he  must.  But  what  about 
those  aristocratically-minded  people  who  don't  describe 
such  disgusting  things,  but  do  them  ?  do  them  unblush- 
ingly  every  day,  in  the  face  of  their  wives,  their  daugh- 
ters, their  pupils,  or  their  friends?  You  open  your 
eyes  with  wonder  at  your  dear  boy's  manners,  when  he 
comes  home  for  his  first  holidays  ;  but  you  would  not 
believe,  if  any  one  declared  it  to  you,  that  he  has 
learned  how  to  eat  and  drink  like  a  pig  from  nobody 
on  earth  except  the  gentlemanly  farmer  of  youths  to 
whose  establishment  you  have  sent  him  to  have  his 
mind  improved. 

"Northcote,"  said  Mr.  Goggs,  looking  up  for  a 
moment  from  his  dainty  dish,  "who  was  that  person 
that  came  in  just  now?" 

"What  person,  sir?"  returned  Harry,  who  never 
spoke  otherwise  than  impudently  to  his  distant  cousin, 
if  he  remembered  it  in  time. 

"You  know  very  well  !"  sputtered  Mr.  Goggs,  with 
two  great  flakes  of  a  Spanish  onion  dangling  out  of  his 


108  MR.   GOGGS  KEEPS   COMPANY 

mouth.  "The  person  that  brought  in  that  wild  beast 
of  a  dog.     I'll  have  him  shot  next  time  he  comes  !" 

"Have  him  shot,  sir!  What,  Mr.  Pippin,  sir?" 
exclaimed  Harry,  putting  on  a  look  of  the  deepest 
concern,  as  if  he  were  trembling  for  his  friend's  life. 

"Leave  the  room,  sir!"  roared  Mr.  Goggs,  who 
had  by  this  time  gathered  up  and  swallowed  the  flakes 
of  onion.  "And  you  will  understand  that  I  distinctly 
forbid  Mr.  Pippin  or  any  other  friend  of  yours  to  enter 
my  schoolroom  again." 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  Harry,  well  pleased  to  escape  from 
the  smell  of  the  nasty  man's  coat  twenty  minutes 
before  any  of  his  less  favored  schoolfellows. 

The  nasty  man,  however,  changed  his  coat,  and 
made  himself  look  moderately  respectable,  before  he 
took  the  chair  at  the  missionary  meeting  in  the  town 
hall.  Mrs.  Goggs  was  too  unwell  to  accompany  him, 
so  she  remained  at  home  and  read  a  tract  on  the  con- 
version of  a  Hottentot  prince  to  some  boys  in  the  sick- 
room. What  a  motherly  woman  she  was  !  The  little 
fellows  had  tasted  nothing  but  gruel  for  three  days  at 
least,  and  were  crying  aloud  for  chops  and  a  glass  of 
beer.  But  she  had  the  wisdom  to  resist  their  en- 
treaties, knowing  far  better  than  they  did  what  was 
good  for  them.  And  when  the  tract  was  finished,  and 
she  had  offered  up  a  prayer,  she  collected  such  odd 
threepenny  pieces  as  they  had  in  their  pockets,  and 
put  them  by  for  the  missionaries.  A  most  inestimable 
woman  was  Mrs.  Goggs. 

The  meeting  was  a  decided  success.  Ministers  of  all 
denominations  were  present,  eager  to  testify  their  in- 
terest   in    the   common   cause.     The    Rev.    Ebenezer 


WITH  HIS  PIG.  109 

Slimes  was  there,  his  sallow  whitewashed  countenance 
wearing  that  peculiar  look  of  pious  resignation  which 
befitted  one  who,  to  all  appearance,  had  nothing  very 
valuable  to  resign.  Hymns  were  sung,  minutes  read, 
and  various  preliminary  business  transacted ;  while 
half  a  dozen  gentlemen,  in  suits  of  shining  threadbare 
black,  with  a  Bible  prominently  displayed  in  one 
pocket,  and  a  ticket  of  leave  carefully  concealed  in 
the  other,  walked  about  the  room  distributing  portraits 
of  piebald  negroes  digging  holes  under  a  palm-tree,  or 
chiefs  with  feathers  in  their  heads,  falling  down  to 
stocks  and  stones.  It  would  be  unfair  to  inquire  too 
diligently  what  they  took  from  the  audience  in  ex- 
change. We  may  content  ourselves  with  the  as- 
surance that  whatever  trifle  this  or  that  middle-aged 
lady  may  afterwards  have  missed,  it  was  something 
which  it  was  good  for  her  soul's  health  to  lose ;  and 
that  the  pious  purloiner  thereof  would  never  have 
abstracted  it,  unless  for  the  sake  of  weaning  its  owner's 
affections  from  earthly  things. 

This  profitable  business  over,  the  deputation  from 
the  parent  society  entertained  the  company  with  select 
and  refined  anecdotes  of  negro  life  which  were  not 
even  founded  on  fact,  and  exhorted  them  with  painful 
eloquence  to  pursue  what  certainly  never  was,  and  we 
trust  never  will  be,  the  way  to  glory.  Then  the  Rev. 
Ebenezer  Slimes  was  called  upon  by  his  dear  brother 
in  the  chair  to  move  the  first  resolution:  "That  this 
meeting,  taking  into  consideration  the  overwhelming 
importance  of  missionary  work  abroad,  do  considei 
that  missionary  work  abroad  is  a  matter  of  the  most 
overwhelming  importance."      (Hear,  hear.)     The  rev- 


no  MR.   GOGGS  KEEPS   COMPANY 

erend  gentleman  spoke  in  chaste  and  highly  grammati- 
cal English  for  three-quarters  of  an  hour,  and  his 
resolution  was  carried  unanimously. 

Will  any  one  explain  to  me  what  comes  of  all  the 
resolutions  that  are  passed  ?  Some  of  them  look  very 
terrible  on  paper,  but  what  happens  afterwards  ?  Does 
the  enthusiastic  multitude  rush  off  bodily,  to  carry 
butcher's  meat  to  a  cannibal,  or  convert  a  Jew?  Is 
any  mortal  man  one  halfpenny  the  better,  or  one  half- 
penny the  worse,  because  the  right  reverend  chairman 
moved  the  adoption  of  the  report,  and  the  report  was 
adopted  accordingly? 

At  the  termination  of  these  edifying  proceedings 
Mr.  Goggs  retired,  with  the  deputation  and  the  Rev. 
Ebenezer  Slimes,  to  the  inn  in  Slipper  Lane  kept  by 
the  last-named  gentleman's  wife's  cousin.  Here  they 
provoked  one  another  to  piety  over  frequently  replen- 
ished cups  of  whatever  stimulating  beverage  was  best 
adapted  for  the  purpose,  and  refreshed  each  other's 
minds  with  godly  conversation  till  twelve  o'clock. 
About  this  period  Mr.  Slimes  became  so  very  drunk, 
and  the  deputation's  anecdotes  grew  so  extremely 
coarse,  that  Mr.  Goggs  supplicated  a  blessing  upon 
their  mutual  labors,  and  walked  home  with  the  greatest 
amount  of  perpendicularity  to  the  pavement  which  it 
was  convenient  to  maintain. 

Meanwhile,  Tom  Pippin  also  indulged  in  a  little 
quiet  dissipation,  after  a  mere  worldly  and  carnal  sort. 
Cheated  out  of  his  fun  with  the  boys,  he  invited  him- 
self to  dinner  in  the  Close,  at  the  house  of  his  old 
friends  Dr.  and  Miss  Stuart. 

''Just  in  time,"  said  the  doctor.     "  We  have  young 


WITH  HIS  PIG.  m 

Crookleigh  staying  with  us,  and  Lady  Maria.  The  lad 
comes  to  me  now  and  then,  you  know,  to  be  looked 
after,  and  his  sister  likes  to  keep  him  company.  I  am 
afraid  he  is  in  a  very  bad  way;  but  she  is  wonderfully 
improved,  both  in  mind  and  body.  I  can't  think, 
Tom,  why  you  don't  go  in  for  her." 

"I  have  need  to  do  something  or  other  with  my- 
self," answered  Tom,  "  for  I  am  in  a  desperate  mess, 
and  that's  the  truth.  Three  blessed  hours  this  day 
have  I  been  going  into  accounts  with  that  fellow  Teasel, 
and  it  is  perfectly  awful  to  think  of  the  amount  I  owe. 
And  by  Jove,  as  far  as  I  can  make  out,  he  has  got  himself, 
by  some  speculation  or  other,  into  a  worse  hobble  still. ' ' 

"Tell  the  earl,"  suggested  Dr.  Stuart. 

"Tell   the any  one   else  you  like,"  said  Tom.. 

"  The  whole  object  of  his  venerable  life  is  to  save  up 
every  pound  he  can  lay  hands  on  for  young  Russet ; 
and  if  I  were  to  beg  for  it  I  don't  believe  he  would 
chuck  me  half  a  crown." 

"  Then  come  up  into  my  room  and  wash  your  hands, 
old  fellow,  for  I  see  that  you  have  got  nothing  to 
change ;  and  when  we  have  sent  Crookleigh  to  bed, 
and  drunk  a  bottle  of  claret,  you  shall  have  the  draw- 
ing-room all  to  yourself,  and  propose  to  Lady  Maria." 

While  Tom's  roast  beef  was  cooling  on  his  plate,  be- 
cause he  could  not  get  any  mustard  to  eat  with  it,  he 
had  ample  leisure  to  judge  for  himself  how  far  Lady 
Maria's  personal  appearance  had  improved.  For  some 
reason  hitherto  unexplained,  it  is  vulgar  to  let  the 
mustard-pot  stand  upon  the  table;  and,  as  it  is  simply 
impossible  to  touch  beef  without  it,  one  is  forced  to 
postpone  one's  dinner  until  every  vegetable  dish  in  the 


H2  MR.   GOGGS  KEEPS   COMPANY 

room  has  been  handed  round,  and  the  footman,  purely 
as  an  after-thought,  fetches  the  desired  stimulant  from 
the  sideboard.  But  after  contemplating  Lady  Maria's 
countenance  steadily  for  a  minute  and  a  half,  Tom 
wanted  something  more  than  mustard  to  make  his  beef 
go  down.  He  had  no  appetite  for  anything.  She  was 
hideous  beyond  all  belief.  Tom  felt  quite  certain  he 
could  never  make  up  his  mind  to  it ;  so  he  drank  a  glass 
of  sherry,  and  let  his  eyes  wander  across  the  table  no 
more. 

At  nine  o'clock,  poor  young  Crookleigh  was  sent  to 
bed,  looking  very  much  as  if  he  would  never  have  the 
strength  to  get  up  again.  At  half-past  nine  the  doctor 
was  summoned  to  attend  a  patient ;  and  Lady  Maria, 
Miss  Stuart,  and  Tom  were  left  to  spend  the  evening 
by  themselves.  Miss  Stuart,  who  was  as  innocent  as  a 
baby  of  all  matrimonial  schemings,  quitted  the  drawing- 
room  as  soon  as  she  had  drunk  a  cup  of  tea,  and  went 
up-stairs  to  discharge  some  kindly  office  for  Lord  Crook- 
leigh. So  the  two  "young  people"  were  in  the  room 
together;  and  Tom  kept  on  wondering  to  himself 
whether  he  should  do  it  then  and  there,  or  let  it  alone. 

At  last  he  did  it.  In  spite  of  his  high  spirits  with  the 
boys  in  the  afternoon,  Tom  was  involved  to  an  extent 
which  would  have  driven  many  and  many  a  man  to 
absolute  despair.  What  could  he  do?  Edith  was  all 
very  well,  but  it  was  not  possible  to  live  either  with  or 
without  her  for  nothing.  And  Tom  had  less  than 
nothing.  Fifty  thousand  pounds  less  than  nothing. 
Whereas,  if  he  could  only  bring  himself  to  say  five  words 
to  Lady  Maria,  he  would  have  a  hundred  thousand  a 
year.    Crookleigh  might  perhaps  live  a  couple  of  months. 


WITH  HIS  PIG.  113 

The  duke  had  not  another  relation  in  the  world.  And 
Tom  Pippin,  just  now,  through  his  silly  old  uncle's  fault, 
the  poorest  beggar  in  Dumplingshire,  would  send  two 
members  to  Parliament,  and  divide  the  county  with  the 
earl. 

"It's  all  my  eye  to  talk  about  love,"  said  Tom  to 
himself;   "so  here  goes." 

"  Maria,  dear  Maria,"  he  said,  sitting  down  beside 
her,  but  not  possessing  himself  of  her  moist  hand. 
"  Maria,  dear  Maria  !   I  do — aw — love  you  so  !" 

"  Come,  come,  Tom,  I  may  be  half  a  fool,  but  I 
know  better  than  that!"  said  Lady  Maria,  giggling, 
and  making  faces  like  an  ape. 

"  Indeed  I  do,  Maria  !  I  have — aw — loved  you  from 
your — aw — infancy. ' ' 

"  My  infancy  !"  roared  Lady  Maria.  "Really,  Tom, 
that  is  rather  too  good !  My  infancy  !  Ah,  I  was  a 
lovely  infant,  Tom,  wasn't  I?  Pity  I  didn't  grow  up 
an  infant,  Tom.  I  might  have  been  lovely  still."  And 
here  she  grinned  at  him  after  a  fashion  which  frightened 
Tom  pretty  nearly  out  of  his  wits,  and  made  him  jump 
off  the  sofa,  and  put  the  tea-table  between  him  and  his 
love. 

"  Don't  run  away,  Tom,"  began  Lady  Maria  again. 
"  You  ought  to  come  and  kiss  me,  Tom,  and  squeeze 
my  hand.     It  is  a  nice  hand,  Tom.     Come  and  feel." 

Poor  Tom  did  not  know  what  on  earth  to  do.  He 
was  wholly  unprepared  for  such  a  reception.  The  little 
speeches  that  he  had  made  up  over  his  wine  were  framed 
upon  the  most  conventional  model,  and  proved  utterly 
inapplicable  to  so  eccentric  a  wooing.  So  he  sat  on 
the  edge  of  his  (hair  at  the  other  side  of  the  table, 

8 


ii4 


MR.   GOGGS  KEEPS  COMPANY 


staring  with  a  horrible  fascination  into  the  lady's  face, 
and  ready  to  bolt  out  of  the  house  in  case  her  idiocy 
should  take  a  violent  turn. 

"You  won't  come  and  kiss  me,  Tom?"  said  Lady 
Maria.  "Well,  I  must  say  that's  rather  hard.  No- 
body ever  has  kissed  me.  People  always  said  I  was 
too  ugly.  But  I  did  think,  when  any  young  man  came 
and  told  me  he  had  loved  me  from  my  infancy,  that  I 
should  get  a  kiss  then.  Do  you  know,  Tom,  I  have  a 
very  great  mind  to  come  across  and  kiss  you  ?' 

"If  you  move  from  your  seat,  Tom,  I  will,"  she 
continued,  seeing  that  Tom  was  pushing  back  his 
chair.  "Why  don't  you  ask  me  for  my  photograph, 
Tom,  or  a  lock  of  my  golden  hair  ?  I  am  afraid  the 
stupid  people  forgot  to  have  my  likeness  taken  in  my 
infancy,  Tom,  when  you  first  began  to  love  me." 

"  Maria,"  faltered  Tom,  finding  some  sort  of  voice  at 
last,  "I  am  afraid  you  have — aw — misunderstood  me." 

"Why,  you  are  never  going  to  back  out  of  it, 
Tom?"  she  returned.  "Surely  it  is  a  bona  fide  offer 
of  marriage,  isn't  it?  Mr.  Thomas  Pippin,  of  Rib- 
stone  Court,  to  the  amiable  and  attractive  Lady  Maria 
Bent,  only  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Dumplingshire. 
No,  no,  Tom  !  I  sha'n't  let  you  off  now,  you  know." 

"It  is  a  vewy — aw — serious  matter,"  observed  Tom, 
sententiously.     "Too  serious  for  joking,  Maria." 

"I  am  not  joking,  Tom,"  she  returned,  leaning 
across  the  table  and  looking  at  him,  something  less 
hideously  than  before.  "  I  am  very  much  in  earnest. 
And  I  will  tell  you  a  little  secret,  Tom.  You  don't 
love  me  one  bit,  Tom;  you  know  you  don't.  You 
only  want  my  money.     Now,  I  do  love  you — love  you 


WITH  HIS  PIG.  II5 

with  all  my  heart  and  soul — love  you  as  only  a  woman 
can  love — as  only  an  ugly  misshapen  woman  can  love, 
who  can  never  get  her  love  back  again,  and  must  needs 
love  enough  for  two.  You  don't  know  what  love 
means,  Tom.  You  don't  even  love  your  Edith  as  she 
deserves  to  be  loved,  or  yon  would  never  come  to  me 
like  this.  Go  back  to  her,  Tom,  and  love  her  better, 
and  tell  her  that  the  poor  ungainly  idiot  had  more 
sense  for  once  than  the  handsome,  popular  man  of 
fashion.  Tell  her  that  the  cripple,  with  coarse  carroty 
hair,  loved  Tom  Pippin  with  a  love  so  true,  that  when 
she  had  him  at  her  feet,  and  might  take  him  if  she 
would,  she  saved  him  from  his  own  folly,  and  forbore 
to  chain  him  for  life  to  a  miserable  object,  who  could 
only  bring  him  into  contempt  with  all  the  world.  Tell 
her  this,  Tom;  and  tell  her  also,  if  you  will,  that 
whatever  little  money  the  idiot  may  possess  shall  lie 
poured  into  her  lap  on  her  bridal  morning,  that  he 
whom  the  idiot  has  dared  to  love  may  be  happy  and 
free." 

"Ah,  Maria,"  said  Tom,  half  crying  as  he  spoke, 
"  it  is  something  more  than  a  '  little  money'  that  will 
make  me  happy  and  free.  I  am  simply  ruined  ;  and 
there  is  no  more  chance  of  my  marrying  Edith  than 
of  my  marrying  Queen  Anne." 

"And  so,  as  a  last  resource,  you  want  to  marry  me," 
said  Lady  Maria.  "Well,  that  is  kind  of  you,  Tom. 
But  what  do  you  mean  by  'ruined'?  How  much  do 
you  suppose  you  owe?" 

"Fifty  thousand  at  the  very  least;  and,  what  is 
more,  it  must  be  raised  immediately.  I  am  mixed  up 
with  a  set  of  fellows  here  who  will  bring  me  to  hope- 


n6  MR.  GOGGS  KEEPS  COMPANY 

less  grief  if  I  don't  get  clear  of  them  at  once.  There 
is  only  one  way  to  do  it,  Maria.  You  say  that  you 
love  me.  I'll  take  my  oath  that  I  love  you.  Of  course 
,1  want  your  money ;  but  I  want  you  too.  Let  us 
make  a  match  of  it.  It's  a  sort  of  thing  that  people — 
aw— do  every  day." 

"I  can't  think  why  you  don't  go  to  your  uncle, 
Tom.  The  money  would  not  be  so  very  much  to 
him." 

"Might  as  well  go  to  the  moon,"  said  Tom.  "I 
know  him  better  than  you  do.  Come,  say  yes,  Maria, 
and  make  me  happy." 

"  If  I  thought  it  would  make  you  happy,  I  would 
say  yes  fifty  times  over,"  answered  she.  "Or  if  I 
knew  for  certain  that  there  was  no  other  way  of  rais- 
ing the  money,  I  would  say  the  same." 

"There  is  no  other  way,"  said  Tom.  " The  duke 
would  clear  me  directly  if  I  married  you.  He  and 
my  uncle  tried  it  on,  don't  you  recollect,  ever  so  long 
ago?" 

"Well,  Tom,  I  think  you  are  quite  wrong;  but  it 
shall  be  as  you  wish.  Only,  please  understand  that  you 
are  perfectly  and  entirely  free.  Free  to  throw  me  over, 
free  to  go  back  to  Edith,  free  at  any  time  to  take  my 
money  and  leave  me  out  in  the  cold.  So  now  good- 
night ;  and  remember  that  the  idiot  won't  reproach  you 
by  a  single  word  if  you  change  your  mind  to-morrow." 

"  I've  done  it,"  said  Tom,  meeting  Dr.  Stuart  at  the 
hall  door,  and  looking  very  much  as  if  he  were  going 
to  be  hung  in  the  morning. 

"No,  have  you,  really?"  said  the  doctor.  "  Come 
back  and  tell  me  all  about  it  over  a  glass  of  whisky." 


WITH  HIS  PIG.  II7 

"Not  to-night,  thank  you."  And  then  Tom  went 
off  to  his  hotel. 

When  he  had  rung  the  coffee-room  bell  for  the  invig- 
orating brandy-and  soda,  without  which  no  young  man 
of  well-regulated  mind  ever  thinks  of  going  to  bed,  Boots 
appeared  behind  the  waiter ;  not  to  bring  a  pair  of  nasty 
buff  slippers,  into  which  three  generations  of  nasty  trav- 
elers had  thrust  their  nasty  feet — for  Tom  had  his  own 
ideas  of  comfort,  as  well  as  of  cleanliness,  and  would 
sooner  have  sat  all  night  in  his  high-lows — but  to  convey 
the  mournful  intelligence  that  Grab  was  missing.  The 
dog  had  slipped  out  of  the  yard  about  ten  o'clock;"while 
Boots  was  seeing  of  a  gent  drive  away;  and  he  had  not 
returned.  Boots  had  been  held  in  a  measure  respon- 
sible for  the  creature's  safety;  and,  with  many  signs  of 
penitence,  he  begged  to  be  informed,  first,  whether  his 
master  had  seen  him  anywhere  about ;  secondly,  whether 
he  should  tell  the  police;  and  thirdly,  whether  Mr.  Pip- 
pin knew  of  any  place  where  such  another  dog  could  be 
procured,  in  case  he  turned  out  to  be  irretrievably  lost. 

"Bless  your  heart,"  said  Tom,  "don't  alarm  your- 
self. He's  all  right.  If  you  sleep  as  sound  to-night  as 
he  will,  you'll  be  pretty  fresh  in  the  morning.  Trust 
Grab  to  find  himself  a  bed,  and  supper,  too." 

Grab  had  indeed  found  for  himself  both  bed  and 
supper.  When  he  gained  his  liberty  at  ten  o'clock — 
for,  to  say  the  truth,  Boots  with  his  kind  attentions  had 
been  rather  an  anxiety  to  him — the  dog  visited  first  the 
chief  public:  buildings  of  the  town,  then  thoroughly 
"did"  the  precincts  of  the  cathedral,  and  finally  deter- 
mined, before  retiring  to  rest,  to  earn  another  shake  of 
his   huge  paw,  and   another  boisterous  hug  round   his 


Ii8  MR.   GOGGS  KEEPS   COMPANY 

shaggy  neck,  from  his  dear  young  master,  Harry  North- 
cote.    Grab's  notions  about  school-hours  were  not  per- 
haps clearly  defined;  but,  as  he  had  never  appeared 
upon  the  playground  yet  without  having  half  a  dozen 
arms  flung  affectionately  round  him,  and  more  than  one 
pair  of  small  legs  set  astride  across  his  back,  he  drew 
the  sagacious  and  very  doggish  conclusion  that  games 
went  on  perpetually.    For  once,  however,  he  found  the 
green  in  front  of  the  schoolroom  deserted.     Not  a  sin- 
gle merry  shout  responded  to  the  wagging  of  his  tail, 
though  the  full  moon  lit  up  the  frosted  grass  so  bril- 
liantly that  Grab  could  not  for  the  life  of  him  compre- 
hend why  it  was  not  daytime,  and  why  the  boys  did 
not  come  out  and  play.     A  wicket  or  two  lay  scattered 
about,  and  a  white  flannel  jacket  was  stiffening  in  the 
cold.     Grab  carried  them  one  by  one  to  the  top  of  the 
steps,  down  which  his  young  friends  had  so  often  rushed 
to  caress  him.     Perhaps  he  thought,  dear  dog,  that  he 
would  get  some  little  fellow  out  of  a  row,  by  bringing 
in  the  jacket  which  he  had  been  "  so  abominably  and 
disgracefully  careless  as  to  leave  outside — totally  against 
the  rules  of  the  school."     If  so,  he  was  mistaken,  for 
the  crime  had  been  discovered  in  the  moonlight,  and 
Mrs.  Goggs,  spying  out  from  her  bedroom  window,  had 
long  ago  sworn  a  saintly  oath  that  in  the  morning  an 
example  should  be  made.     When  he  had  rubbed  his 
head  in  the  jacket,  as  the  next  best  thing  to  embracing 
its  owner,  Grab  thumped  the  schoolroom  door  with  his 
tail,  scratched  at  the  crevices  underneath,  shook  the 
handle  with  his  paws,  grew  sorrowful  and  whined,  grew 
indignant  and  growled,  grew  angry  and  barked,  and 
then  pricked  up  his  ears  and  stood  erect,  listening  for 


WITH  HIS  PIG.  119 

the  repetition  of  a  low  clear  whistle,  which  could  pro- 
ceed  from  no  other  mouth  than  that  of  his  very  partic- 
ular friend. 

Now  it  happened  that  the  good  things  which  Tom 
Pippin  sent  down  to  the  schoolroom  by  Frank  Teasel's 
hands  had  arrived  too  late  to  allow  of  their  being  con- 
sumed before  bedtime.  The  boys  resolved,  therefore, 
to  take  the  opportunity,  while  Mr.  Goggs  was  out  of 
the  way,  to  smuggle  the  various  provisions  up-stairs, 
and  to  hold  a  feast,  at  some  convenient  hour  of  the 
night,  in  one  of  the  bedrooms.  The  feast,  however, 
must  of  necessity  be  postponed  until  the  reverend  gen- 
tleman's return,  because  he  was  perfectly  certain  to 
sneak  up  the  back  staircase  without  his  boots,  and  to 
listen  at  each  bedroom  door  as  he  passed  to  his  own 
sacred  chamber;  so  that  it  would  not  be  safe  to  begin 
banqueting  until  he  had  been  heard  to  lock  himself  in 
for  the  night.  In  accordance  with  the  judicious  cus- 
tom of  all  pettifogging  schools,  the  boys  at  Dumpling- 
ton  were  sent  to  bed  at  half-past  eight  o'clock — partly 
to  save  the  expense  of  gas,  and  partly  to  save  masters 
the  trouble  of  looking  after  the  farm  any  longer.  The 
wisdom  of  this  arrangement  is  manifest.  It  being 
utterly  impossible  for  any  boy,  from  twelve  to  sixteen 
or  so,  to  go  to  sleep  at  such  an  hour,  he  lies  awake, 
with  his  bright  imagination  hard  at  work  to  discover 
the  pleasantest  mode  of  getting  through  the  time,  and 
with  full  liberty  to  think,  act,  or  say  just  whatever  his 
bright  imagination  may  suggest  to  him.  "Thank 
goodness!"  says  the  farmer,  as  he  sits  down  to  his 
Saturday  Review  while  the  supper  is  being  laid,  "  I'm 
well  rid  of  them  all  for  to-night,  at  any  rate  !"     "  Yes, 


120  MR.   GOGGS  KEEPS   COMPANY 

my  love,"  says  the  farmer's  wife  ;  "and  think  of  the 
pounds  we  save,  by  putting  out  the  fire  and  the  gas  so 
nice  and  early  !  Besides,  if  they  sat  up  late,  we  should 
have  to  give  them  bread  and  cheese,  you  know."  It 
might  be  worth  your  while,  my  dear  Mrs.  Deemon,  if 
you  could  only  look  a  little  further  ahead ;  it  might  be 
worth  your  while  in  the  end  to  give  them  not  bread 
and  cheese  only,  but  a  good  big  slice  of  cold  roast 
beef,  and  a  hunch  of  cake  besides.  You  may  save 
your  gas,  and  your  husband  may  shirk  his  responsibility  ; 
and  even  yet  you  may  have  something  extra  to  pay.  We 
will  hope  that  your  boys  are  heavenly  boys,  and  can  be 
'trusted  to  lie  awake  for  an  hour  and  a  half  before  any 
one  else  ever  dreams  of  going  to  bed,  with  no  check 
upon  them,  and  with  nothing  to  do.  But,  if  they  should 
chance  to  be  common  earthly  boys,  then,  for  all  the 
mischief  that  is  done  in  that  hour  and  a  half,  whatever 
it  may  be — for  the  bad  words  spoken,  the  poisonous 
stories  told,  the  evil  lessons  taught,  the  bullying,  prac- 
ticed simply  to  pass  away  the  time, — for  all  this  you 
will  have  to  give  account,  and  a  pretty  reckoning  it 
will  be.  Your  only  chance  lies  in  letting  the  boys  do 
just  the  very  thing  which  you  will  not  let  them  do  at 
any  price — kick  up  a  jolly  good  row.  Where  there  is 
noise,  there  is  safety.  If  the  mere  suspicion  should 
arise  of  a  bolstering-match,  or  a  feast  spread  on  one  of 
the  beds,  or  any  such  dangerous  breach  of  the  peace, 
Mr.  Deemon  would  rush  up-stairs  with  weapons,  and 
his  wife  stand  aghast  with  horror.  That  would  soil 
the  sheets,  and  make  a  mess,  and  give  the  servants 
trouble.  The  room  would  have  to  be  scrubbed  again 
before  any  parents  could  be  shown  over  it;  counter- 


WITH  HIS  PIG.  121 

panes  would  have  to  go  to  the  wash,  and  pillow-cases 
to  be  mended.  Boys  who  could  perpetrate  such  an 
outrage  would  merit  to  be  caned  all  round,  and  the 
ringleaders  would  narrowly  escape  expulsion.  But  so 
long  as  they  go  quietly  to  bed,  and  let  you  save  your 
coals  and  gas,  what  do  you  care  how  much  harm  may 
happen  to  them?  So  grin  away,  Mr.  Deemon,  over 
your  Saturday  Review  ;  and  cast  up  your  weekly  profits, 
Mrs.  Deemon,  with  complacent  face;  and  then  fall  to, 
and  eat  your  supper,  and  never  mind  the  hungry  stom- 
achs up  stairs.  There  is  nobody  to  tell.  Boy-farming 
is  the  safest  possible  trade.  Only  the  boys  know  any- 
thing of  its  secrets;  and  if  they  say  a  word,  bless  you, 
they  won't  be  believed. 

On  this  particular  Friday  night,  in  this  special 
month  of  November,  things  were  in  training  for  as 
merry  a  feast  as  starving  schoolboys  could  desire. 
There  was  an  enormous  veal-and-ham  pie,  which  had 
been  "made  to  order"  for  somebody  else,  but  which 
the  pastrycook  had  generously  yielded  up  to  Tom 
Pippin,  to  the  immense  gratification,  no  doubt,  of  the 
individual  who  had  ordered  it.  Then  there  were  cakes 
and  tarts  and  sausage-rolls,  and  a  dozen  bottles  of  beer 
(oh,  naughty  Tom  I),  and  oceans  of  sweets  to  be  sucked 
quietly  in  bed  ;  and  finally,  what  the  young  revelers 
would  appreciate  more  than  anything  else,  some  real 
good  bread  and  cheese.  Bread  almost  hot,  in  dear 
little  twopenny  cottage  loaves ;  and  cheese  which 
tasted  of  cheese,  and  not  of  yellow  soap,  as  did  the 
lumps  of  sickly-looking  stuff  served  out  as  a  treat  on 
Sunday  night  for  supper — which  lumps  the  boys  always 
declared  to  be  "second-hand,"  and  to  have  been  pre- 


I22  MR.   GOGGS  KEEPS   COMPANY 

viously  suspended  on  wire  in  Mrs.  Goggs's  numerous 
mousetraps.  Mrs.  Goggs  was  much  afflicted  with  mice. 
She  had  more  than  once  essayed  to  keep  a  cat ;  but  the 
boys  paid  such  marked  attentions  to  the  animal,  in 
recognition  of  its  mistress's  spite  against  themselves, 
that  the  situation  became  known  throughout  the  town 
as  untenable,  and  no  cat  would  remain  in  the  house  on 
any  terms. 

The  dormitory  in  which  these  preparations  had  been 
made  was  a  long  room  running  right  across  the  house, 
with  one  window  placed  over  the  front  door  and  an- 
other looking  into  the  back  garden.  On  this  particular 
moonlight  night  there  could  be  no  difficulty,  therefore, 
in  watching  the  schoolmaster's  approach  several  hun- 
dred yards  before  he  reached  the  door ;  but  the  school- 
master would  not  come.  At  half-past  ten  the  boys  lost 
patience,  and  divided  the  spoil ;  eating  the  pie,  which 
was  inconveniently  full  of  gravy,  out  of  their  respect- 
ive soap-dishes,  and  proving,  by  their  successful  use 
of  primitive  expedients,  that  forks  and  spoons  are  the 
mere  superfluities  of  an  extravagant  age.  They  were 
still  hard  at  it,  passing  broken  tooth-mugs  full  of  beer 
from  bed  to  bed,  "swopping"  sausage-rolls  for  tarts, 
or  cake  for  cheese,  and  making  a  great  deal  more  noise 
than  was  safe,  even  in  their  master's  absence, — when 
Harry  Northcote,  who  slept  against  the  window,  but 
who  had  been  too  much  engaged  of  late  to  look  out  of 
it,  heard  first  a  whine,  and  then  a  growl,  and  then  a 
bark,  which  could  proceed  from  no  other  mouth  than 
that  of  his  very  particular  friend. 

"  By  Jove !"  he  cried,  springing  out  of  bed,  "there's 
old  Grab  sitting  on  the  steps  by  the  schoolroom  door !" 


WITH  HIS  PIG.  !  2 


j 


"So  there  is  !"  exclaimed  half  a  dozen  other  fellows, 
flocking  in  their  night-shirts  to  the  window,  while 
Harry  whistled  softly  to  his  favorite,  through  a  broken 
pane  of  glass.  "So  there  is.  Let's  shy  him  down 
some  grub  ! ' ' 

"  Oh,  yes,  do  let's  !"  said  a  fat,  good-natured  youth 
from  the  other  end  of  the  room,  who  had  been  too 
lazy  to  turn  out.  "Bags  I  giving  him  my  tarts.  I 
don't  want  'em." 

"You  ass,  Punch!"  said  Harry.  "As  if  a  dog 
would  eat  tarts!  Look  here,  who's  got  any  pie  left? 
Hanged  if  mine  isn't  all  gone." 

"Here  you  are,  Harry,"  said  two  or  three  of  the 
small  boys,  who  would  have  given  up  their  whole  share 
to  their  friend,  even  if  he  had  not  wanted  it  for  Grab. 

So  a  liberal  contribution  was  made,  and  a  highly 
miscellaneous  meal  was  tied  up  in  a  towel,  for  the  dear 
dog's  supper.  A  pocket-handkerchief  had  been  prof- 
fered for  the  purpose,  but  it  was  getting  towards  the 
end  of  the  week,  and  Harry  indignantly  asked  the 
owner  how  he  would  like  it  himself,  and  whether  lie- 
thought  that  a  dog  hadn't  got  any  feelings. 

The  next  question  was,  how  to  get  the  food  down- 
stairs. If  the  bundle  were  fastened  up  tight  enough  to 
prevent  the  scraps  from  tumbling  out  when  thrown 
from  the  window,  could  the  dog  be  trusted  to  untie  it? 
Harry  believed  he  could  ;  but  it  was  impossible  to  say. 
Could  even  such  teeth  as  his  penetrate  one  of  Mrs. 
Goggs's  serviceable  towels?  That,  again,  was  doubt- 
ful. "Well,"  said  Harry,  jumping  up  at  last,  and 
putting  on  his  trousers,  "I  don't  rare  a  hang  !  I've 
been  licked  twice  to-day,  and  I've  got  more  than  two 


124  MR-   GOGGS  KEEPS   COMPANY 

thousand  lines  to  show  up  on  Monday;  and  now  I'll 
just  give  that  beast  something  to  spite  me  for!"  So 
saying,  he  opened  the  window,  called  Grab,  who  came 
bounding  over  a  wall  about  six  feet  high,  instructed 
him  by  mystic  signs  to  lie  down  quietly  at  the  front 
door,  and  then  crept  as  softly  as  possible  down  the 
creaking  stairs,  bundle  in  hand. 

He  had  scarcely  turned  the  handle  of  the  door  when 
Grab  pushed  himself  in,  rushed  upon  him  with  dem- 
onstrations of  the  wildest  joy,  licked  his  hands,  his 
feet,  and  his  neck,  burrowed  with  his  cold  nose  into 
the  boy's  open  chest,  tickling  poor  Harry  to  such  an 
extent  that  he  rolled  right  over  with  laughter,  and  alto- 
gether took  the  meanest  advantage  of  the  accident 
which  had  placed  his  young  master  for  once  completely 
in  his  power.  Turn  which  way  he  would,  Harry  could 
not  get  rid  of  him.  The  more  he  wriggled  about,  the 
more  fresh  places  the  animal  found  out  to  torment  him 
in ;  till  the  boy  determined  at  last  that  his  best  chance 
lay  in  keeping  quiet,  and  resigning  himself  patiently 
to  the  dog's  caresses,  while  he  freed  his  arm  from 
the  pressure  of  his  assailant's  huge  paw,  and  un- 
fastened the  bundle  of  provisions.  Then  Grab — for 
he  was  but  a  dog  after  all — sniffed  at  the  good 
things,  left  his  young  master  alone,  and  straightway 
devoured  his  supper;  with  but  little  more  speed, 
and  infinitely  less  noise  and  commotion,  than  Mr. 
Goggs  was  wont  to  make  over  his  French  beans  or 
asparagus. 

Harry  was  just  gathering  up  the  broken  scraps  in  the 
moonlight,  and  wondering  within  himself,  first,  why 
Mrs.  Goggs  did  not  come  out  of  her  room  and  catch 


WITH  HIS  PIG. 


125 


him ;  secondly,  how  on  earth  he  should  fetch  the  dog 
some  water  without  being  followed  up-stairs;  and, 
thirdly,  how  he  might  best  prevail  upon  Grab  to  go 
back  to  the  inn  :  when  he  espied  the  clumsy  figure  of 
the  schoolmaster  staggering  across  the  green.  Like  a 
dear  good  dog  as  he  was,  Grab  suffered  himself  to  be 
seized  by  the  collar  and  pushed  without  ceremony  out- 
side the  door ;  but  Harry  had  scarcely  time  to  reach 
his  bed  in  safety  when  the  Rev.  Goggs,  with  a  some- 
what unsteady  method  of  progression,  advanced  to  the 
garden  gate.  Advanced,  but  speedily  retired ;  for 
Grab  had  his  eye  upon  him  ;  and,  if  the  schoolmaster 
had  dared  to  come  inside  the  gateway,  Grab  would 
have  had  his  paw  upon  him  too.  Mr.  Goggs  was  not 
the  sort  of  man  to  place  his  life  or  even  his  limbs  in 
danger.  "  I  must  let  myself  in  through  the  back  door," 
muttered  that  pious  farmer  of  boys;  "and,  if  I  don't 
have  that  brute's  throat  cut  in  the  morning,  my  name 
isn't  Hezekiah  Goggs."  That  brute,  however,  who 
appeared  to  consider  that  the  schoolmaster  had  been 
specially  intrusted  to  his  charge  by  Harry  and  Tom, 
paid  Mr.  Goggs  the  compliment  to  spring  over  the 
playground  wall,  and  to  follow  him  to  the  back-garden 
gate,  which  the  reverend  gentleman  was  so  far  fuddled, 
after  his  missionary  dissipations,  as  to  slam  carelessly 
behind  him,  and  leave  ajar.  Grab  pushed  it  open, 
howled  in  the  very  exuberance  of  his  great  joy,  chased 
his  enemy  over  paths  and  cabbage-stumps  and  beds  of 
celery,  and  was  in  the  act  of  dragging  him  backwards 
by  the  tail  of  his  coat,  when  Mr.  Goggs,  recalling  in 
his  dire  extremity  the  elasticities  of  his  youth,  cleared 
the   low   paling   which   served    his   pig    for  a   palace 


i26  MR.   GOGGS  KEEPS  COMPANY 

boundary,  and  bolted  clean  into  the  sty,  barring  the 
door  behind  him. 

Fifteen  boys  from  their  bedroom  window  roaring 
with  delight ;  four  servant-maids  from  their  cold  attic, 
shivering,  yet  clapping  their  hands  for  glee ;  one 
wretched  shoeblack,  from  his  straw  bed  in  the  stable- 
loft,  glorying  over  the  stingy  taskmaster  who  had  upset 
him  in  the  afternoon  ;  and  one  invalid  wife,  with 
nerves  unstrung,  aroused  out  of  her  first  delicious 
sleep,  wherein  she  had  contemplated  troops  of  starving 
children  fed  from  her  bosom  with  a  tender  mother's 
care :  all  these  were  spectators  of  the  scene.  Mr. 
Goggs  seemed  determined  to  collect  as  many  specta- 
tors upon  the  ground  as  possible ;  for  he  raised,  from 
his  savory  resting-place,  repeated  shrieks  of  murder,  to 
which  the  pig  responded  with  indignant  grunts  and  the 
dog  with  angry  barkings.  Could  nothing  be  done  to 
save  him?  The  invalid  wife  with  nerves  unstrung 
resolved  at  last  that  an  effort  should  be  made.  The 
ushers  were  none  of  them  sleeping  in  the  house ;  she 
would  call  to  her  assistance  some  of  the  bigger  boys — 
bound  to  help  her  by  every  tie  of  loyalty — specially 
bound  to  show  their  gratitude  for  favors  recently  vouch- 
safed. Had  she  not  given  Crawford  two  helpings  of 
suet-pudding  that  very  day?  Had  she  not,  on  summer 
evenings,  indulged  the  boys  so  far  as  to  allow  them  to 
come  into  her  garden  and  water  the  vegetables  and 
flowers,  saving  their  dear  master  about  ten  shillings  a 
week  thereby?  Had  she  not  also,  when  tired  to  death 
of  playing  croquet  with  her  lord,  who  held  his  mallet 
as  a  plowman  holds  a  spoon,  and  cheated  fright- 
fully,— had  not  she  permitted  some  of  the  boys  to  vary 


WITH  HIS  PIG.  127 

the  monotony  of  the  game  by  sitting  up  late  and  play- 
ing with  her,  giving  them  a  bunch  of  out-door  grapes 
and  half  a  glass  of  home-made  ginger  wine  for  supper? 
Had  she  not  paid  them  the  distinguished  honor,  again 
and  again,  of  sending  them  up  into  the  town,  just  as 
they  were  going  to  begin  cricket  or  football,  to  buy 
her  sixpennyworth  of  tape  at  some  cheap  shop  for  five- 
pence  farthing,  or  bargain  with  the  butcher  to  let  her 
have  some  unusually  dainty  morsel,  wherewith  to  make 
a  pie  for  the  young  gentlemen,  at  half  price?  Surely 
the  young  gentlemen  were  not  so  destitute  of  human 
feelings  as  to  be  unmindful  of  benefits  such  as  these. 
She  robed  herself,  therefore,  and  descended  the  stairs ; 
constitutionally  unable,  however,  even  when  time  was 
so  exceeding  precious,  to  resist  the  temptation  of  lis- 
tening at  the  bedroom  door.  "  I  wish  they  would  not 
all  talk  at  once!"  sighed  the  ill-used  woman  at  last. 
"I  really  can't  hear  a  word  they  say."  Then  she 
knocked  for  admittance;  and  the  boys,  waiting  for  a 
moment  to  hear  the  knock  repeated,  scuttled  away — 
flying  headlong  into  the  first  unoccupied  bed  that  hap- 
pened to  stand  near,  and  not  very  particular  whether 
it  were  occupied  or  not,  if  only  the  rightful  tenant 
were  small  enough  to  afford  them  shelter  and  conceal- 
ment in  his  narrow  crib. 

"Crawford,"  she  began — under  no  circumstances 
had  she  ever  been  known  to  address  a  boy  by  his 
Christian  name — "Crawford,  I  shall  not  this  time- 
report  you,  as  captain  of  this  dormitory,  for  the  dis- 

K  eful  noise  which  I  heard  on  entering  the  room." 

"Thank  you,  ma'am,"  said  Crawford. 

"  Berause  1  wish  you,  and  two  or  three  of  the  elder 


128  MR.  GOGGS  KEEPS  COMPANY 

boys,  instantly  to  put  on  your  things,  and  go  down  into 
the  garden  to  help  Mr.  Goggs,  who  is  unfortunately 
shut  up  in  the — the — outhouse." 

"Pig-sty,  ma'am,"  said  Crawford. 

"Welly  never  mind  where  it  is.  I  desire  that  you, 
and  Vyvyan,  and  Melvill  will  go  and  drive  away  that 
dreadful  dog  immediately." 

"Please  'em,  there  isn't  a  fellow  in  the  school  that 
would  dare  go  near  him,"  urged  Crawford,  who  was 
about  the  pluckiest  boy  that  ever  lived,  and  would 
have  faced  a  lion  and  a  bear  in  defense  of  any  one  else 
but  his  beloved  master. 

"  I'll  go,  ma'am,"  said  Harry,  who  thought  the  joke 
had  now  gone  far  enough.  "It's  only  Grab.  He'll 
come  away  directly,  if  I  run  down  and  catch  hold  of 
him." 

In  less  than  half  a  minute  after  the  amiable  matron 
had  made  herself  scarce,  Harry  was  in  the  garden,  with 
his  arm  flung  round  his  favorite's  neck,  coaxing  him  to 
leave  his  prey ;  while  Mr.  Goggs,  kneeling  with  damp 
shins  upon  his  bed  of  filth,  and  hugging  the  pig  affec- 
tionately with  both  his  arms,  was  coaxing  the  com- 
panion of  his  captivity  to  turn  his  snout  in  the  other 
direction,  and  not  to  allay  the  irritation  of  his  skin  by 
rubbing  his  head  caressingly  up  and  down  his  master's 
waistcoat. 

By  this  time  the  whole  house  had  been  made  aware 
of  the  calamity  which  had  befallen  its  chief.  Boys  had 
crept  up-stairs  from  Crawford's  room  to  telegraph  the 
glad  tidings  to  the  less  wakeful  youths  above.  Every 
window  was  thronged  with  eager  faces,  peering  into  the 
moonlit  garden.     Every  landing  on  the  staircase  was 


WITH  HIS  PIG. 


129 


crowded  with  boys  in  white,  their  teeth  chattering  as 
they  cheered,  unmindful  of  the  cold  November  night, 
unmindful  of  bare  legs  and  naked  throats,  if  only  they 
might  catch  one  glimpse  of  Goggs  before  Grab  had  let 
him  go.  But  among  all  that  joyous  company,  none 
were  so  ecstatic  in  their  glee  as  the  three  sons  of  Mr. 
Goggs' s  own  body  begotten. 

"Hooray!"  cried  Bobby.  "Pa's  in  the  pig-sty! 
Hope,  he'll  never  get  out  again.  Hooray  !"  Then  he 
ran  into  the  small  boys'  room  to  tell  his  younger 
brothers,  who  were  scarcely  yet  bona  fide  members  of 
the  academy,  passing  an  amphibious  existence  between 
the  schoolroom  and  the  nursery,  being  thumped  by 
the  usher  in  the  morning  for  pronouncing  Latin  like 
French,  and  slapped  by  their  sisters'  governess  in  the 
afternoon  for  pronouncing  French  like  Latin. 

"♦Goggs  minor,"  said  Bobby,  "get  up  as  quick  as 
you  can,  and  wake  Minimus.  Here's  such  a  lark.  Pa's 
in  the  pig-sty !" 

"Goggs  minimus,"  said  Freddy,  as  soon  as  he  had 
realized  the  importance  of  the  news ;  "  Goggs  minimus ! 
can't  you  hear?  Jump  up  directly.  Pa's  in  the  pig- 
sty!     Hooray!" 

"  Hooray  !"  echoed  little  Johnny,  tottering  drowsily 
to  the  window.  "Oh,  I  do  so  wish  the  pig  would 
gobble  him  up — I  do,  I  do,  I  do  /" 

But  thanks  to  Harry's  protection,  pa  was  now  a  free 
man.  And  when  he  saw  that  the  boy  had  the  animal 
so  completely  under  control,  pa  became  suddenly  a 
courageous  man,  and  then  a  furiously  angry  man. 

"Hold  him,  Northcote  !"  he  shouted;  "hold  him 
tight,  while  I  get  a  big  stone,  and  dash  his  brains  out !" 

9 


13° 


MR.   GOGGS  KEEPS  COMPANY 


"  No,  sir  !"  pleaded  Harry.  "  He'll  kill  you  if  you 
touch  him — really  he  will !" 

But  Mr.  Goggs  was  long  past  the  influence  of  persua- 
sion. Mad  with  rage,  he  tore  up  a  couple  of  enormous 
stones  from  some  rock-work  close  by,  and  hurled  them 
one  after  another  at  the  dog  and  the  boy  together,  as 
if  it  were  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference  to  him  which 
of  the  two  he  brained.  Of  course  he  missed  them  both 
by  about  a  yard  and  a  half,  being  as  clumsy  a  shot  as 
you  would  meet  in  a  day's  journey  ;  but  Harry  did  not 
choose  to  stand  still  and  be  shied  at  by  such  a  lunatic 
again.  Restraining  Grab,  therefore,  by  numerous  en- 
dearments from  flying  at  the  lunatic's  throat,  he  led  the 
creature  across  the  cabbage-stumps  and  through  the 
garden  gate,  which  Mr.  Goggs  effectually  this  time  shut 
behind  them  by  dashing  against  it  a  stone  something 
smaller  than  his  own  misshapen  head.  This  was  too 
much  for  Harry.  The  man  was  becoming  dangerous, 
and  Grabb  should  not  be  killed,  if  he  could  help  it,  be- 
fore his  very  eyes.  The  dog,  clearly,  would  not  go 
home  without  him ;  therefore  he  would  see  the  dog 
home.  He  would  break  any  amount  of  school  rules, 
and  stand  his  chance  of  expulsion  itself,  rather  than  see 
his  darling  Grab  slaughtered  in  cold  blood  upon  the 
doorstep.  So  they  started  off  together,  unpursued  by 
Mr.  Goggs,  who  could  not  get  through  his  shattered  door ; 
and  a  merry  scamper  they  had,  across  the  green,  and 
down  three  or  four  streets,  and  into  the  Red  Lion  yard. 

"You  sha'n't  go  back  to-night,  boy,"  said  Tom 
Pippin,  when  he  had  embraced  his  favorite,  and  heard 
his  young  friend's  story. 

"Oh,  but,  Tom,  I  must  indeed,"  urged  Harry.     "I 


WITH  HIS  PIG.  I3I 

shall"get  into  such  an  awful  row.  Besides,  Goggs  will 
come  and  fetch  me." 

"  He  had  better,"  said  Tom.  "  He  shall  have  some- 
thing handsome  to  carry  back  with  him  ;  but  he  sha'n't 
have  you.  By  Jove,  I  would  not  trust  you  in  that 
brute's  clutches  to-night  for  any  money.  I'll  owe  him 
one  for  trying  to  murder  my  dear  dog;  but  I  won't 
give  him  the  chance  of  doing  you  a  mischief.  No,  no, 
you  shall  have  a  bed  here. ' ' 

Tom  Pippin  always  had  his  own  way,  so  Harry  slept 
at  the  Red  Lion ;  and  Mr.  Goggs  was  far  too  frantic  in 
his  wrath  to  bother  himself  that  night  with  any  inqui- 
ries whether  Northcote  had  returned  to  his  dormitory 
or  no. 

In  the  morning  Tom  got  up  at  the  unwonted  hour  of 
seven,  and  walked  with  Harry  back  to  school.  "I'll 
just  wait  a  minute  outside,"  he  said,  as  the  boys  assem- 
bled at  the  half-hour,  and  work,  such  as  it  was,  began. 
"I'll  condescend  for  once  to  listen  at  the  door — a 
thing  I  wouldn't  do  for  anybody  else,  Master  Harry, 
any  more  than  I'd  get  up  at  seven.  And,  if  that  beg- 
gar dares  to  lay  a  finger  on  you,  by  George  he  shall  be 
a  mummy  before  breakfast-time  !" 

But  Tom  need  not  have  troubled  himself  either  to 
get  up  at  seven,  or  to  utter  threats,  or  to  listen  at  the 
door.  Mr.  Goggs  did  not  appear  in  school  on  that  day 
or  on  the  next.  His  nerves,  like  those  of  his  invalid 
wife,  were  wholly  unstrung.  His  combined  experiences 
of  Mr.  Teasel  in  the  study,  of  Grab  in  the  garden,  and 
of  the  pig  in  the  sly,  had  been  too  much  for  him,  and 
for  two  entire  days  he  was  confined  to  his  room.  On 
the  third  day  he  resumed  the  management  of  the  farm ; 


I32  MR.  GOGGS  KEEPS  COMPANY 

but  he  had  been  chastened  by  adversity,  and  tried  in 
the  furnace  of  affliction.  Subdued  and  sad,  he  resolved 
to  fight  no  more,  but  to  make  peace  with  his  enemies 
all  round.  Grab  should  be  pardoned  for  his  assaults ; 
Harry  Northcote  and  his  friend,  who  had  been  robbed 
of  their  oranges  and  brawn,  should  receive  their  shilling 
apiece  ;  and  Mr.  Teasel  should  have  his  apology. 

"Northcote,"  said  Mr.  Goggs,  for  not  even  when 
chastened  by  adversity  could  the  man  do  a  straightfor- 
ward action,—"  Northcote,  here  is  a  shilling  for  you, 
as  a  reward  for  your  assistance  in  the  garden.  And 
who  was  the  other  boy  whom  Mrs.  Goggs  sent  down  to 
help  you  with  the  dog?     Freeland,  was  it  not?" 

"No,  sir,"  answered  Harry,  thunderstruck  at  his 
relative's  unheard-of  munificence.  "There  was  no 
other  boy,  sir." 

"Ah,  well,  I  said  Freeland,  so  I  will  not  disappoint 
him.  Freeland,  here  is  your  shilling."  And  thus  it 
was  that  the  minister  of  religion  trained  up  children  in 
the  way  in  which  it  is  to  be  devoutly  hoped  that  they 
did  not  go,  and  conscientiously  fulfilled  the  first  half 
of  the  stern  conditions  imposed  by  Mr.  Teasel. 

The  other  half,  however,  of  his  unpalatable  duty  had 
yet  to  be  discharged.  By  this  time  Mr.  Teasel  must 
have  returned  to  Dumplington,  from  the  little  trip-to- 
town-on-business  in  which  Mrs.  Teasel  had  accom- 
panied him.  There  had  been  a  certain  amount  of 
significance  in  the  lawyer's  intimation  that  his  wife 
would  share  his  journey.  Very  few  of  his  journeys, 
whether  on  business  or  pleasure,  did  his  faithful  partner 
share.  Mr.  Teasel  was  a  popular  man,  and  a  highly 
respectable  man,  in  spite  of  the  mystery  which  shrouded 


WITH  HIS  PIG.  I33 

his  professional  pursuits  from  the  vulgar  gaze  and  baf- 
fled the  gossipings  even  of  a  Cathedral  town.  But.  for 
ail  that,  Mr.  Teasel  was  a  villain,  inasmuch  as  he  be- 
haved badly  to  his  wife.  By  this  it  is  not  meant  that 
he  went  about  with  wives  appertaining  to  other  people. 
His  bad  behavior  amounted  to  nothing  more  than  a 
trifling  misapprehension  of  liabilities  incurred.  He 
simply  neglected  the  poor  woman,  left  her  alone,  took 
his  holidays  without  her,  and  claimed  the  right  to  enjoy 
perpetually  all  bachelor  immunities  from  household 
care,  looking  to  his  wife  for  an  ungrudging  supply  of 
household  comforts  whenever  it  suited  his  convenience 
to  remain  at  home.  There  are  plenty  of  such  men, 
and  they  seem  to  me  to  be  wholly  without  an  excuse 
for  their  villainy.  The  unmarried  wretch,  moping  by 
his  solitary  fireside,  rewards  himself  for  his  wretched- 
ness overnight  by  rambling  on  the  morrow  whither- 
soever he  will.  He  sets  the  delights  of  companionship 
against  the  untold  joys  of  liberty,  and  says  to  himself 
that  he  is  happier  if  he  so  abide.  But,  if  he  marries, 
let  it  be  for  better  for  worse.  Let  him  stick  loyally  to 
his  wife,  as  he  would  have  his  wife  stick  loyally  to  him. 
He  has  no  right  to  play  the  bachelor  just  when  it 
pleases  him.  He  has  no  business  to  run  down  for  a 
fortnight  to  the  seaside  and  leave  his  wife  to  keep  house 
at  home.  He  is  a  villain  if  he  dines  out  every  day  for 
a  month,  because  his  wife  has  got  a  baby.  Of  course 
she  declares  she  likes  it,  and  wishes  him  to  go,  and  is 
far  happier  to  be  left  alone,  and  to  feel  satisfied  that 
he  will  get  a  good  dinner  with  his  friends  elsewhere. 
Women  always  say  these  things;  and  men,  knowing 
nothing — absolutely  nothing — of  the  pure  unselfishness 


X34        MR.  GOGGS  KEEPS   COMPANY,  ETC. 

of  their  love,  are  only  too  glad  to  take  them  at  their 
word.  Ah,  my  friend,  if  you  could  see  your  wife's 
tears  when  you  are  gone — tears  not  all  of  sorrow  for 
your  absence,  but  tears  sometimes  of  bitter  indignation 
at  the  contempt  you  pour  upon  her  by  your  neglect — . 
then  I  think  you  would  eat  your  mutton-chop  and 
drink  your  glass  of  sherry  on  a  little  table  by  the  sick 
woman's  bedside,  and  thank  God  that  you  had  dined 
well. 

After  morning  school  on  the  day  appointed,  Mr. 
Goggs  called  upon  the  lawyer. 

"Sir,"  said  he,  as  soon  as  he  found  himself  in  the 
office,  "I  have  given  the  two  boys  a  shilling  apiece, 
and  I  beg  to  say  that  I  regret,  upon  mature  considera- 
tion, having — aw " 

"All  right,  old  fellow,"  said  Mr.  Teasel,  who  had 
by  this  time  almost  forgotten  the  matter.  "  Stop  and 
have  some  luncheon." 

The  schoolmaster  was  on  the  point  of  explaining, 
with  many  thanks,  that  his  presence  would  shortly  be 
required  in  his  own  dining-hall,  when  the  door  of  the 
office  was  burst  suddenly  open,  and  two  young  ladies, 
each  ornamented  with  a  head  of  bright  red  hair,  raced 
each  other  into  the  room.  "Oh,  papa!"  they  both 
cried  at  once,  far  too  excited  to  notice  Mr.  Goggs, — 
"oh,  papa,  what  do  you  think?  Have  you  heard  the 
news?  Some  dreadful  murderer  has  broken  into  Lady 
Appletree's  bedroom  and  carried  off  her  baby  /" 


LORD  APPLE  TREE  SEES  A  FRIEND.        135 


CHAPTER    X. 

LORD   APPLETREE   SEES   A   FRIEND   AFTER   DINNER. 

At  the  close  of  the  festivities  held  in  celebration  of 
little  Viscount  Russet's  christening,  the  guests  assem- 
bled to  do  him  honor  went  their  respective  ways,  ex- 
cepting only  Sir  John  Montgomery  and  his  daughter, 
who  tarried  still  at  Withycombe.  The  party,  however, 
was  shortly  increased  by  the  arrival  of  the  Rev.  Ernest 
Toyle,  whom  Lord  Appletree  insisted  upon  releasing 
from  the  bondage  of  his  landlady,  until  he  had  recov- 
ered sufficient  strength  to  enable  him  to  bear  it. 

Here  the  poor  curate  was  weak  enough  to  forget  his 
plain  face  and  his  beggary,  and  to  fall  hopelessly  in 
love  with  the  beautiful  Edith.  Think  of  his  impu- 
dence !  He,  an  "  inferior"  clergyman,  with  one  hun- 
dred pounds  a  year,  and  a  sitting-room  twelve  feet  by 
ten,  had  dared  to  imagine  himself  to  belong  to  the 
same  species  on  this  earth  as  a  Scotchman  and  a  baronet ; 
had  dared  to  believe  it  not  outrageously  impossible 
that  he  might  be  found  fit  to  mate  with  the  loveliest 
woman  in  Dumplingshire.  Think  of  his  impudence, 
and  pity  him  when  his  eyes  shall  be  opened  to  the 
enormity  of  his  sin  ! 

Very,  very  soon  the  opening  came.  He  was  not  a  man 
to  hesitate,  when  he  had  once  seen  his  way.     He  might 


136  LORD  APPLETREE  SEES 

be  nervous  out-of-doors  at  night,  but  he  knew  what 
he  was  about  very  well  in  Lady  Appletree's  drawing- 
room. 

"Edith,  dear  Edith!  I  love  you — oh,  it's  of  no 
use  to  try  and  say  how  much  !  Dear,  darling  Edith  ! 
I  can't  help  loving  you,  though  I  am  so  hideous,  and 
you  are  so  beautiful ;  and,  though  I  am  as  poor  as  a 
rat,  and  you  are  tremendously  rich — at  least,  I  suppose 
so.  But  look  here,  Edith.  You  won't  have  me,  of 
course ;  will  you?" 

There  was  no  mincing  of  the  matter  here.  A  man 
could  not  well  speak  his  mind  more  plainly.  The  two 
were  playing  backgammon  in  the  drawing-room.  Mr. 
Toyle  had  escaped  thither,  after  his  second  glass  of 
sherry,  which  was  all  that  was  permitted  him  at  present, 
and  had  left  the  earl  and  the  baronet  to  drink  their 
wine  together.  Lady  Appletree  was  fast  asleep  in  her 
snug  arm-chair,  whence  nasal  snortings  proceeded  ever 
and  again,  —  echoes  from  the  kitchen-home  of  early 
plebeian  days,  remembered  only  now  in  dreams. 

Mr.  Toyle  was  conducting  himself  in  a  decidedly 
eccentric  manner,  and  Edith  had  occasion  more  than 
once  to  call  him  to  order. 

"  Why,  what  can  be  the  matter  with  you?"  said  she. 
"That  is  the  third  time  you  have  wanted  to  play  one 
of  my  men  !" 

"I  can't  help  it,"  he  replied.  "I  am  not  thinking 
a  bit  about  the  game."  And  then  he  made  his  declara- 
tion of  love  as  above  recorded. 

"It  is  your  turn,"  said  Edith,  who  was  totally  un- 
prepared with  her  answer.  Silly  girl !  She  ought  to 
have  rehearsed  the  whole  scene  in  her  bedroom,  and 


A   FRIEND  AFTER  DINNER.  137 

to  have  learned  every  possible  reply  by  heart,  the  very 
day  she  heard  that  the  curate  was  coming. 

"Bother  the  turns!"  said  Mr.  Toyle,  whose  love 
was  getting  the  better  of  his  manners.  "  Look  here, 
Edith.  You  have  been  so  jolly  good  to  me.  You 
didn't  think,  when  you  and  her  ladyship  were  nursing 
me,  and  bringing  me  all  sorts  of  things,  that  you  were 
making  me  love  you  better  than  all  the  world.  I 
haven't  got  a  farthing,  Edith;  but  I'll  make  it  up  to 
you,  that  I  will,  if  you  will  let  me.  Of  course  you" 
could  have  any  one  you  pleased, — Honorables  and 
Colonels,  and  Sir  Timothys,  and  all  the  rest  of  it. 
But,  suppose  you  did ;  why,  Edith,  they  would  not 
treat  you  well.  They  would  not,  really.  And  what's 
the  good  of  marrying  a  swell,  if  he  bullies  you,  and 
leaves  you  all  alone?  Dearest  Edith,  Ell  do  my  very 
best  to  make  you  happy — 1  will — I  swear  I  will !" 

"Sh sh  !"    said  Edith ;   "I  wish  I  had  known 

you  were  thinking  of  this  before.     It's  the  most  unfor- 
tunate thing  !" 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,  then,"  began  the  curate, 
"  that  there  is  no  hope  for  me — no  hope  at  all  ?" 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Toyle  !  it  is  not  fur  me  to  talk  about 
no  hope.  I  am  sure  I  hope  with  all  my  heart  that  you 
will  be  happy  for  the  rest  of  your  days.  I  am  very 
certain  that  you  deserve  to  be.  But  didn't  you  know 
that  I  was  engaged  already  to  Mr.  Pippin?  Don't 
look  like  that  at  me,  Mr.  Toyle.  I  am  so  very,  very 
sorry!" 

11  Engaged  to  Mr.  Pippin  !  Ah  !  now  I  understand. 
Good-night,  Edith.  I  won't  call  you  anything  else — 
till  you're  married  ;  and  then  I  shall  be  dead,  or  some- 


138 


LORD  APPLE  TREE  SEES 


thing  worse.  Tom  Pippin  !  Ah — I  like  him  awfully. 
I  don't  know  a  better  fellow  than  Tom  Pippin.  But 
they  are  all  alike  with  women.  So  please  understand, 
Edith,  that  when  he  throws  you  over,  because  he 
wants  to  marry  the  Dowager  Duchess  of  Double 
Gloucester,  poor  Ernest  Toyle,  with  his  hundred  a 
year,  and  his  ugly  mug,  and  his  sitting-room  twelve 
feet  by  ten,  loves  you  with  all  his  heart  and  soul,  and 
will  give  up  his  whole  life  to  serve  you,  and  .comfort 
you,  and  shield  you  from  care,  and  soothe  your  sor- 
rows in  this  world,  and  help  you,  as  best  he  may,  to 
be  happy  hereafter  in  the  world  above." 

The  next  day  the  curate  invented  an  excuse  for 
going  back  to  his  sitting-room  twelve  feet  by  ten, 
where  widow  Giles  made  up  for  lost  time  by  letting 
him  know  the  blessedness  of  being  well  looked  after. 
It  was  a  pity  that  she  could  not  write  his  Sunday's 
sermon  for  him,  for  the  poor  fellow  was  scarcely  in  a 
condition  to  write  it  himself.  He  could  think  of 
nothing  but  Edith — of  Edith,  lost  to  him,  and  sacri- 
ficed to  Tom  Pippin.  At  last  he  wrote  to  his  rector, 
positively  refusing  to  preach,  and  begging  him  to 
edify  the  devout  souls  at  Withycombe  with  two  of  his 
own  ponderous  discourses  instead  of  one.  Mr.  Toyle 
in  his  affliction  was  rather  hard  upon  the  devout  souls 
at  Withycombe. 

It  utterly  passes  my  comprehension  how  the  laymen 
of  average  intelligence  can  endure  the  average  sermon. 
Nine  expositions  out  of  ten,  as  delivered  from  British 
pulpits,  are — not  to  be  over-critical — a  simple  waste  of 
time.  Why  on  earth  should  they  be  delivered?  What 
is  the  real  worth  of  this  inexorable  law  which  compels 


A   FRIEND  AFTER  DINNER.  139 

the  preacher  who  has  got  nothing  to  say  to  spend  five- 
and-twenty  minutes  twice  every  Sunday  in  saying  it  ? 
Why  should  the  educated  worshiper  be  perpetually 
bored  by  the  dreary  exhortations  of  a  holy  man  with- 
out an  idea  in  his  head,  who  cannot  even  write  decent 
grammar  ?  Why  should  the  unlettered  and  the  poor 
be  driven  away  to  the  Meeting-house,  by  the  lifeless 
commonplaces  of  some  fair  and  ruddy  youth,  who 
reads  affectedly  his  grandfather's  manuscript  in  the 
morning,  and  his  grandmother's  in  the  afternoon? 
Why  should  the  whole  congregation,  young  and  old, 
be  incited  habitually  to  slumber,  by  the  same  ancient 
story,  clothed  in  the  same  ancient  words,  and  bewailed 
in  the  same  doleful  strain,  till  every  child  knows  what 
is  coming  next,  and  could  stand  up  and  preach  it  as 
well  as  the  parson?  There  can  be  no  shadow  of  a 
reason  why.  The  average  sermon  is  a  nuisance,  and 
worse  than  a  nuisance, — a  wicked  device  to  keep  men 
bark  from  coming  to  church  to  pray.  And  when  one 
thinks  what  a  sermon  might  be — what,  indeed,  just 
once  in  ten  times  a  sermon  actually  is — how  crowds 
might  be  attracted,  and  hearts  be  stirred,  and  souls  be 
won,  by  a  rightful  use  of  the  ordinance  now  so  shame- 
fully abused, — one  can  only  pray  with  fervor,  for  the 
sake  of  clergy  and  congregation  alike,  that  a  remedy 
may  be  found.  And  the  remedy  is  in  every  layman's 
hands.  The  people  can  make  their  parson's  sermon 
what  they  please.  So  long  as  they  are  content  to  put 
up  with  twaddle,  so  long  will  twaddle  be  preached  to 
them.  The  curate  is  indeed  bound  to  sit  and  listen  to 
his  rector,  and  the  rector  is  bound  to  sit  and  listen  to 
his  curate  ;  because  they  are  both  paid  so  much  a  year 


I4o  LORD  APPLETREE   SEES 

to  stay  quietly  in  their  places  till  the  service  is  over. 
But  the  laity  are  paid  nothing,  and  are  bound  to  listen 
to  nobody.  Let  them  simply  decline  to  be  worried 
for  half  an  hour  in  church  by  stuff  which  they  would 
cough  down  and  hiss  in  the  town  hall.  Let  them  rise 
in  a  body,  as  soon  as  they  have  said  their  prayers,  and 
walk  home  to  luncheon,  leaving  the  rector  and  his 
assistant  minister  to  improve  one  another's  minds. 
They  will  find  next  Sunday  that  they  are  better  able  to 
sit  it  out ;  and  that  the  sermon  which  used  to  be 
scribbled  off  hurriedly  at  the  very  end  of  the  week  has 
been  thought  over  on  Monday,  and  jotted  down  on 
Tuesday,  and  written  fairly  out  on  Wednesday,  and 
weeded  of  its  superfluous  repetitions  on  Thursday,  and 
cut  in  half  on  Friday,  and  reduced  yet  once  again  to 
its  legitimate  duration  of  twelve  or  fourteen  minutes  on 
Saturday.  A  man  who  can't  say  enough  in  twelve 
minutes  to  set  his  people  thinking  for  the  rest  of  the 
week  has  no  business  to  get  up  into  his  pulpit  at  all. 

Very  bad  taste,  is  it  not,  my  reverend  brother,  to 
speak  of  sermons  in  such  a  way  ?  Yes.  And  I  wonder 
which  is  worse — to  laugh  at  bad  sermons,  or  to  preach 
them?  to  deprecate  that  "pernicious  facility"  in  ser- 
mon writing  which  is  a  reproach  to  our  order;  or  to  go 
on  Sunday  after  Sunday  driving  men  into  indifference 
and  infidelity,  disgusting  those  whom  you  ought  to  win, 
abusing  one  of  the  very  grandest  opportunities  for  good, 
and  wearying  the  unexampled  patience  of  your  hearers, 
by  a  performance  which  you  would  never  dare  inflict 
upon  them,  unless  protected  by  the  privileges  of  your 
calling,  and  the  sanctity  of  the  place  from  whence  you 
lull  your  little  flock  to  sleep? 


A   FRIEND  AFTER  DINNER. 


141 


The  rector  preached  his  two  discourses,  grumbling 
very  much  at  his  curate's  renewed  indisposition  ;  and 
Miss  Rampion  presided  at  the  harmonium.  It  was  cer- 
tainly very  hard  upon  the  devout  souls  of  Withycombe. 

Miss  Rampion  was  proud  of  her  harmonium.  In  her 
eyes,  it  represented  a  triumph  of  ecclesiastical  civiliza- 
tion. "When  we  came  here,  you  know,"  said  that 
young  lady  exultingly  to  a  neighboring  parson,  "  there 
was  a  horrid  oboe,  and  a  couple  of  dreadful  clarionets, 
and  three  or  four  fiddles,  and  a  trumpet,  and  a  drum. 
But  we  did  away  with  all  that,  you  know,  very  soon  !" 

"Just  so,"  said  the  parson.  "You  found  the  ma- 
terial for  an  uncommonly  good  village  band,  and  you 
set  your  foot  upon  it ;  putting  in  its  place — what,  did 
you  say?" 

"Oh,  such  a  nice  harmonium." 

"A  nice  harmonium — an  instrument  which  could 
have  been  designed  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  send 
half  the  congregation  hurrying  out  of  church  in  con- 
siderable pain.  And  by  way  of  completing  your  reform, 
you  abolished  Tate  and  Brady,  I  presume,  and  substi- 
tuted Hymns  Ancient  and  Modern?" 

"  Oh,  yes,  that  we  did.  I  do  so  love  that  dear  Hymns 
Ancient  and  Modern  !" 

"Ah,  most  young  ladies  do.  The  red  edges  go  for 
something;  and  it  is  nice  to  have  a  collection  of 
Christy  Minstrel  songs  for  Sunday,  as  well  as  for  week- 
days. Well,  Miss  Rampion,  I  can't  say  that  I  congrat- 
ulate you  on  your  improvements  !" 

"  Why,  Mr.  Yarrow  !  I  thought  you  were  a  good 
Churchman  !  and  now  you  are  abusing  all  the  nice 
High  Church  tunes  !" 


1 42  LORD  APPLE  TREE  SEES 

"  Too  good  a  Churchman,  Miss  Rampion,  I  trust,  to 
drive  out  of  my  church,  and  mortally  offend,  half  a 
dozen  well-meaning  fiddlers,  who  only  wanted' a  little 
instruction  to  become  an  efficient  band.  If  you  had 
sent  the  poor  fellows  over  to  me,  instead  of  to  the 
Meeting-house,  we  would  have  had  The  May  Queen,  or 
Acis  and  Galatea,  in  our  schoolroom,  before  the  end  of 
the  summer.  I  wish  /could  lay  my  hands  on  a  couple 
of  dreadful  clarionets  and  a  horrid  oboe.  But  you  good 
people,  with  your  High  Church  reforms,  have  extin- 
guished music  in  our  country  villages  for  ever  and 
ever. ' ' 

"Then,  pray,"  asked  the  rector's  daughter,  with  a 
sneer,  "do  you  sing  Tate  and  Brady?" 

"No,  I  don't,  Miss  Rampion.  lam  not  fond  of 
parodies,  and  I  sing  the  psalms  in  their  proper  place, 
before  the  first  lesson.  English  literature  supplies  me 
with  just  five-and-twenty  hymns  which  are  fit  to  be 
sung  in  church,  and  the  resources  of  Christian  art  pro- 
vide just  five-and-twenty  suitable  tunes.  These  we 
shall  go  on  singing,  in  our  humble  little  choir,  till  mu- 
sicians and  poets  help  us  to  enlarge  our  number.  But 
I  would  rather  go  back  to  Tate  and  Brady,  and  drums 
and  fiddles,  and  a  barrel-organ  besides,  than  desecrate 
my  chancel  with  negro  melodies,  or  descend  to  the 
spoony  sentimental  familiarities  of  address  with  which 
modern  High  Churchmen  are  not  ashamed  to  insult 
their  Lord." 

Mr.  Toyle  paid  no  more  visits  to  the  great  house  till 
the  baronet  and  his  daughter  had  gone  away,  leaving 
the  earl,  almost  for  the  first  time  since  his  marriage,  in 
the  uninterrupted  enjoyment  of  his  countess-cook's  so- 


A  FRIEND  AFTER  DINNER. 


143 


ciety.  Lord  Appletree  was  a  man  who  all  his  life  long 
had  found  his  own  company  more  than  tolerable. 
When  his  house  was  full  of  friends,  he  was  very  happy  ; 
and,  when  his  friends  were  gone,  he  was  very  happy 
too.  Should  a  snug  little  party  of  four  or  five  assist 
him  to  dispose  of  his  good  things  at  dinner,  he  was 
pleased  to  give  them  of  his  very  best ;  but,  should  it 
fall  to  his  lot  to  dine  alone,  he  was  equally  pleased  to 
take  the  very  best  himself.  Such  comforts  as  money 
could  procure  consoled  in  his  solitude  the  Earl  of  Apple- 
tree;  and,  if  his  friends  could  have  witnessed  the 
amount  of  consolation  his  solitude  sustained,  they 
must  needs  have  arrived  at  the  conclusion  either  that 
wine  in  excess  is  very  wholesome,  or  that  his  lordship's 
life  would  not  be  prolonged  to  extreme  old  age. 

One  evening  early  in  November,  when  the  earl  had 
dined  unusually  well;  while  choice  Madeira,  which  for 
a  wonder  had  not  been  kept  too  long,  sparkled  in  his 
glass,  and  claret,  on  the  rug,  before  the  fire,  gave 
promise  of  yet  more  glorious  delights  in  the  future; 
while  the  countess,  in  her  little  room  up-stairs,  nursed 
the  baby,  stimulating  herself  to  the  grateful  duties  de- 
manded of  her  by  repeated  sippings  from  a  bla<  k 
bottle — "Lady  Appletree's  secret" — underneath  her 
chair :  one  evening  early  in  November  the  butler 
interrupted  Lord  Appletree's  lonely  dissipation  by  in- 
forming him  that  a  Mr.  Burdock  was  in  the  hall, 
desiring  to  see  his  lordship  on  most  important  busi- 
ness. 

"Oh,  I  can't  see  any  one  at  this  time  of  night," 
said  the  earl.      "Tell  him  to  come  to-morrow." 

But  Mr.  Burdock  refused  to  come  to-morrow,  and 


I44  LCRD  APPLE  TREE  SEES 

persisted  in  urging  admittance  to-night.     "  He  won't 
go,  my  lord,"  reported  the  butler. 

"  He  must  go  !"  said  the  earl.     "  Shut  the  door." 

Mr.  Burdock,  however,  would  not  go ;  and  the  but- 
ler, impressed  with  the  sense  of  half  a  sovereign  just 
received,  came  back  in  the  hope  of  changing  his  lord- 
ship's mind. 

"What  is  his  name,  Roberts?"  asked  the  earl, 
relenting. 

"  Burdock,  my  lord." 

"Never  heard  of  him  in  my  life.  What  sort  of  a 
looking  man?" 

"Dark,  my  lord,  with  an  enormous  beard.  Not 
quite  the  gentleman,  my  lord  ;  but  he  says  his  business 
is  of  the  most  txt-mendous  importance." 

"  Show  him  in,  Roberts,  and  come  up  directly,  if  I 
ring.  And,  look  here ;  just  put  away  the  claret  till  he 
has  gone." 

Mr.  Burdock  was  certainly  a  very  dark  man,  with 
such  a  beard  as  you  do  not  often  see.  His  face  was 
all  hair,  if  we  except  a  low  shining  forehead,  a  red 
nose,  and  a  pair  of  fierce  black  eyes.  He  looked  as 
if  he  had  just  escaped  for  an  hour  or  two  out  of  the 
woods,  and  must  go  back  again  to  sleep.  His  clothes,, 
by  which  the  butler  had  probably  condemned  his  pre- 
tensions to  be  a  gentleman,  were  decidedly  seedy; 
and  as  he  advanced  into  the  room  the  earl  became 
conscious  of  an  odor,  steaming  from  his  coat,  his  whis- 
kers, and  his  hair,  which  led  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
short  pipe  he  had  just  left  off  smoking  was  an  old  com- 
panion, and  lay,  rank  and  stale,  in  his  frowsy  pocket. 
Lord  Appletree  was  too  much  of  a  gentleman  to  show 


A   FRIEND  AFTER  DINNER. 


M5 


his  disgust,  and  too  much  a  man  of  the  world  to  sup- 
pose that  he  had  any  just  cause  for  doing  so.  He  was 
aware  that  men  who  smoke  are  accustomed  to  proclaim 
their  taste  wherever  they  go,  by  carrying  short  pipes 
in  their  pockets,  and  wafting  an  incense  of  stale  tobacco 
into  ever,y  room  they  enter.  What  especial  virtue  the 
scent  of  stale  tobacco  possesses,  that  it  should  be 
tolerated  more  than  any  other  nasty  smell,  is  a  solemn 
mystery.  The  man  who  should  venture  to  perfume 
himself  and  all  his  belongings  with  onions,  or  pepper- 
mint, or  whatever  other  elegant  odors  there  be,  would 
be  shunned  in  any  decent  society,  and  be  forced  to  in- 
dulge his  peculiar  weakness  in  the  stable.  But  the 
smoker  is  king  of  all  the  earth.  He  may  saturate  him- 
self with  his  horrible  drug,  till  his  books,  his  curtains, 
his  coat,  his  whiskers,  and  his  very  breath  are  an 
abomination  to  every  one  who  comes  near  him;  and, 
because  it  is  considered  fine  to  smoke,  and  muffish  not 
to  smoke,  nobody  has  the  courage  to  tell  him  that  he 
is  filthy. 

There  could  be  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Burdock  was  filthy 
— very  filthy  indeed.  Lord  Appletree  could  not  re- 
member when  so  unsavory-looking  a  creature  had  ever 
been  shown  .into  his  dining-room  before;  but  never- 
theless he  begged  him  to  be  seated,  asked  him  his  busi- 
ness, and  offered  him  a  glass  of  wine. 

Mr.  Burdock,  however,  was  such  a  very  long  time  in 
coming  to  his  business,  that  his  noble  entertainer  began 
to  lose  patience  with  him.  "If  you  really  have  any- 
thing to  say  to  me,  sir,"  he  urged  at  last,  "I  will 
trouble  you  to  say  it ;  for  you  must  be  aware ' ' 

"Quite  aware,  my  lord,  I  assure  you,"  replied  Mr. 

10 


146  LORD  APPLETREE   SEES 

Burdock,  who,  after  a  long  deliberation  within  himself 
in  what  character  he  might  best  appear,  decided  that  an 
assumption  of  extreme  impudence  was  the  most  likely 
to  serve  his  turn.  "  Quite  aware,  my  lord.  Under  the 
peculiar  circumstances" — and  here  the  speaker  smiled 
affably,  jerking  his  thumb  in  the  direction  of  the  stair- 
case— "  under  the  peculiar  circumstances " 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean  by  circumstances, 
sir,"  said  the  earl,  rising  from  his  chair  in  great  anger 
and  opening  the  door,  "  but  your  manner  is  confound- 
edly impertinent,  and  I  will  thank  you  to  leave  the 
room." 


11 


Wait  a  moment,  my  lord,"  rejoined  his  visitor, 
coolly  taking  up  a  clean  glass,  and  holding  it  before  the 
lamp.  "  Don't  think  much  of  that  Madeira,  my  lord  ; 
it's  corked.  So  I'll  just  drink  your  lordship's  and  her 
ladyship's  and — and  the  little  lord's  health  in  a  glass  of 
port,  if  you  will  allow  me."  » 

"But  I  won't  allow  you,"  cried  the  earl,  ringing  the 
bell  furiously.  "Get  out  of  the  house  directly,  sir! 
And,  Roberts,"  he  continued,  as  the  butler  ran  hastily 
into  the  room,  "  if  ever  you  bring  a  blackguard  like 
that  in  here  to  annoy  me  again,  you  will  leave  my 
service.     Take  him  out  directly." 

"A  blackguard  like  that — very  well,  my  lord.  Per- 
haps by  this  day  week  or  sooner  you  will  be  glad  to 
hear  what  the  blackguard  has  got -to  say.  If  so,  you 
will  find  him  at  the  Pippin  Arms.  Snug  little  place, 
the  Pippin  Arms,  my  lord.  Happy  to  see  you  to 
luncheon,  any  day  you  choose  to  call.  Proud  to  in- 
troduce your  lordship  to  a  few  more  blackguards,  who 
will  know  more  about  this  business  by  that  time  than 


A   FRIEND  AFTER  DINNER. 


147 


you  will  exactly  like,  if  you  persist  in  not  going  into  it 
quietly  now  with  me.  For  Heaven's  sake,  my  lord,  be 
advised" — and  here  Mr.  Burdock  threw  off  his  impu- 
dent manner,  and  thrust  his  great  whiskers,  laden  with 
their  horrid  fragrance,  under  his  listener's  nose,  and 
whispered,  in  a  voice  which  would  have  been  tragic 
but  for  the  tobacco,  a  solemn  request  that  the  earl 
would  think  better  of  it,  and  listen  to  what  he  had  to 
say. 

"You  may  go,  Roberts,"  said  the  earl  at  last,  when 
he  had  recovered  his  breath,  for  the  close  embrace  of 
his  visitor  had  fairly  knocked  him  backwards.  "You 
may  go  ;  but  don't  go  far  away,  and  be  ready  to  come 
up  the  instant  that  I  ring  the  bell." 

"  None  of  your  listening  at  the  door,  though,"  sug- 
gested Mr.  Burdock,  with  an  easy  familiarity  which 
almost  made  Lord  Appletree  change  his  mind.  "  His 
lordship  and  I  shall  get  on  very  well  without  you  for 
the  next  half-hour  or  so;  and,  when  we  want  coffee,  we 
will  ring."  Then,  leaning  gracefully  back  in  his  chair, 
and  tapping  the  points  of  his  fingers  together,  he  began 
business. 

"  You  have  a  nephew,  Lord  Appletree,  I  believe?" 
The  earl  signified  that  such  was  the  case. 

"His  name  is  Pippin — Tom  Pippin,  I  think?"  he 
continued. 

"Yes,  sir,  it  is,"  was  the  reply. 

"And  lie  owes  a  lot  of  money,  a  great  lot  of  money, 
a  most  tre-mendous  lot  of  money." 

"I  am  sorry  to  hear  it, Mr,  both  for  his  sake  and  for 
yours,  if  you  are  one  of  his  <  reditors;  but  I  really  do 
not  see  what  it  has  to  do  with  me." 


I48  LORD  APPLE  TREE   SEES 

"  It  has  this  much  to  do  with  yon,  my  lord,  that  your 
hopeful  nephew  has  made  use  of  your  name — has  bor- 
rowed thousands  and  thousands  of  pounds  of  one  man 
or  another,  to  be  repaid  when  he  comes  into  this 
property,  every  acre  of  which  is  entailed  ;  and  now  it 
appears  that  the  property  won't  come  to  him  at  all,  but 
to  her  ladyship's  baby  up-stairs.  That  is  what  it  has  to 
do  with  you,  my  lord  ;  and  I  am  here  to-night  to  find 
out  whether,  under  the  peculiar  circumstances,  you  are 
going  to  pay  your  nephew's  debts ;  and,  if  not,  what 
amount  of  personal  property  you  will  undertake  to 
leave  him  at  your  death,  to  satisfy  his  creditors'  claims." 

"Not  one  farthing,  sir,  you  may  depend  upon  it; 
not  one  farthing.  My  nephew's  debts  are  nothing  to 
me,  and  you,  sir,  are  still  less;  so,  if  this  is  all  the 
business  you  have  with  me,  you  may  retire." 

"But  it  is  not  all,  my  lord,"  returned  the  other, 
filling  his  glass  again,  while  the  earl  looked  helplessly 
on,  fascinated  by  his  cool  impudence.  "You  see,  my 
lord,"  he  continued,  "I'm  a  sort  of  a  money-lender — 
that's  what  I  am." 

"Well,  but  I  don't  want  any  money,"  said  the 
earl. 

"No,  my  lord,"  returned  Mr.  Burdock;  "I  don't 
suppose  you  do.  Noble  earls  ain't  often  in  want  of 
money.  What  they  want  is  the  pluck  to  spend  it.  A 
hundred  thousand  a  year  isn't  of  much  use  to  a  man 
if  his  agent  only  allows  him  six  or  seven  thousand  of 
it,  and  tells  him  that  he  must  employ  the  rest  on  the 
improvement  of  the  property.  Well,  as  I  was  saying, 
I'm  a  sort  of  a  money-lender.  I'm  not  a  Jew,  though, 
you  understand." 


A  FRIEND  AFTER  DINNER.  14g 

"No,  not  a  Jew,"  repeated  the  earl,  thinking  that 
his  visitor  looked  extremely  little  like  a  Christian. 

"But  I  oblige  gentlemen  now  and  then  with  ready- 
money;  and  I  have  been  obliging  a  certain  gentleman 
at  Dumplington  lately  with  a  goodish  deal.  Perhaps 
you  don't  know  my  friend  Mr.  Teasel,  my  lord?" 

"No,  I  don't,"  said  his  lordship.  "Your  friend 
Mr.  Teasel  is  not  much  in  my  line." 

"Ah,  I  thought  not,  my  lord — he's  one  of  the 
'blackguards;'  but  we  professional  men,  you  see,  are 
compelled  to  mix  with  all  sorts.  Well,  Mr.  Peter 
Teasel,  of  the  Close,  Dumplington,  attorney-at-law, 
has  advanced  your  lordship's  nephew  from  first  to  last 
a  matter  of  fifty  thousand  pounds,  of  which  forty-four 
thousand  four  hundred  and  forty-four  pounds  fourteen 
shillings  and  fourpence  farthing  have  been  raised  by 
me.  Now,  a  sum  of  money  like  that  can  be  nothing 
to  you,  my  lord.  Be  a  brick,  and  shell  out,  and  let 
Tom  Pippin  have  the  pleasure  of  telling  his-  friends 
that  the  coat  on  his  back  is  paid  for.  You  don't  smoke, 
my  lord,  do  you?"  he  continued,  pulling  out  of  his 
pocket  a  lump  of  Cavendish,  and  making  preparations 
for  cutting  it  up  in  slices  on  a  dessert-plate  by  his 
side. 

"I'll  be " 

"Don't  swear,  my  lord;  it  ain't  like  a  nobleman, 
you  know,  and  it's  very  bad  for  the  health  besides — 
especially  so  soon  after  dinner.  Take  a  pipe,  my  lord, 
and  think  over  it." 

"Roberts  !"  shouted  the  earl,  in  too  great  a  passion 
to  remember  that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  a  bell-rope 
in  the  room.    "  Roberts  !"  but  before  the  butler  could 


i5° 


LORD  APPLETREE  SEES 


appear,  Mr.  Burdock  had  filled  and  tossed  off  two 
more  glasses  of  sherry,  and  was  moving  towards  the 
door. 

"  By-by,  my  lord,"  said  he,  affably  nodding  his 
head.  "I'll  call  for  the  money  in  the  morning. 
You'll  give  it  me,  all  right.  It  isn't  nice  to  have  a 
nephew  who  owes  fifty  thousand  pounds.  Burdock  is 
my  name,  my  lord.  Burdock,  No.  5  Cat's  Alley, 
Cornhill.  You  needn't  mind  about  the  butler.  I  can 
find  my  way.     By-by  ! ' ' 

Mr.  Burdock,  however,  could  not  find  his  way,  for 
he  turned  down  the  wrong  corridor  at  starting,  and 
had  traveled  some  twenty  yards  thereon  before  he 
arrived  at  an  opening.  Then  he  espied,  straight  in 
front  of  him,  a  staircase,  leading  to  a  gallery;  and 
looking  upwards  he  espied,  as  she  passed  along  the  gal- 
lery, a  nursemaid  carrying  a  child.  With  no  clearly- 
defined  intentions,  Mr.  Burdock  thought  he  should  like 
to  pass  along  that  gallery  too  ;  and  thither  he  pro- 
ceeded to  ascend. 

There  were  no  creaking  stairs  at  Withycombe  House. 
You  trod  on  paths  of  green  and  crimson,  your  foot 
sinking  half  an  inch  into  the  velvet  pile.  The  nurse- 
maid had  no  idea  that  she  was  being  pursued ;  and 
her  pursuer  had  certainly  no  idea  what  he  should  do 
next,  supposing  he  overtook  her. 

At  last  she  gave  him  an  idea.  At  the  end  of  the 
gallery  was  an  open  doorway,  leading  into  a  bedroom 
lit  throughout  by  the  flames  of  a  scorching  fire.  In  a 
corner,  visible  through  the  doorway,  stood  a  cradle, 
sacred  to  the  tranquil  slumbers,  or  the  fractious  wail- 
ings,  of  John  Viscount  Russet.     Here  the  infant,  who 


A   FRIEND  AFTER  DINNER.  151 

had  fallen  asleep  in  his  mother's  arms,  was  somewhat 
hastily  deposited;  and  here  the  nursemaid  left  him, 
while  she  ran  down  to  her  supper  by  another  flight  of 
stairs. 

Bad  spirits,  hovering  around  the  money-lender's 
head,  whispered  to  him  that  he  would  never  get  such  a 
glorious  chance  again.  If  he  could  only  smuggle  the 
baby  out  of  the  house,  and  make  away  with  it,  or  hide 
it,  or  sell  it,  or  put  it  out  to  be  farmed,  Tom  Pippin 
would  have  his  earldom,  and  Tom  Pippin's  creditors 
would  be  paid  in  full.  Good  spirits  hovered  near  the 
money-lender,  too ;  for  Mr.  Burdock  was  not  yet  quite 
given  up  to  villainy;  and  they  also  had  something  to 
say.  But  the  good  spirits  got  the  worst  of  it,  as  they 
very  commonly  do;  and  Mr.  Burdock  carried  off  the 
child. 

The  staircase  down  which  the  nursemaid  had  gayly 
tripped  led  at  once  to  an  outside  door,  opening  on  to 
the  gravel  drive  in  front  of  the  house.  This  door  now 
stood  ajar,  letting  in  a  streak  of  moonlight.  Mr.  Bur- 
dock did  not  trip  very  gayly  down  the  staircase,  for  he 
was  a  heavy  man,  and  was  moreover  rather  afraid  of 
dropping  the  child,  being  encumbered  with  a  great- 
coat and  an  umbrella,  which  it  might  have  been  dan- 
gerous to  leave  behind.  But  he  blessed  the  open  door, 
and  cursed  the  streak  of  moonlight,  and  hurried  with 
his  burden  down  the  intricate  windings  of  the  shrub- 
bery, devoutly  praying  that  none  of  the  inmates  of 
Withycombe  House  might  be  looking  out  of  window. 

Bad  spirits  brought  him  luck,  and  guided  him  safely 
through  the  shrubbery,  and  down  the  avenue  of  elms, 
and  past  the  clump  of  cedars  on  the    rising  ground 


152 


LORD  APPLETREE  SEES 


above  the  lake,  till  he  stumbled  upon  a  well-worn  path- 
way leading  to  a  stile.  Bad  spirits — nay,  dear,  good, 
loving  spirits — kept  the  poor  child  asleep,  and  prompted 
him  to  nestle  closely  into  his  ravisher's  arms.  Bad 
spirits  brought  the  money-lender  to  a  trout-stream, 
over  which  had  been  flung  a  rustic  bridge,  for  the  con- 
venience apparently  of  a  cottager  whose  strip  of  garden 
ran  down  to  the  waterside.  Bad  spirits  made  him 
linger  by  the  edge  and  watch  the  ripples  dancing  on 
the  silver  flood,  murmuring  delicious  melodies  to  the 
silent  night,  with  none  but  a  money-lender  to  hear. 
Bad  spirits  set  him  wondering  how  deep  the  river  was 
a  little  farther  down,  and  whether  it  soon  reached  a 
mill,  and  whether  the  mimic  torrent,  gushing  through 
the  open  sluice  some  hundred  yards  away,  made  noise 
enough  to  drown  an  infant's  cries.  Bad  spirits  said 
out  boldly,  "Chuck  the  little  beggar  in!"  but  their 
voice  was  harsh  and  horrible,  and  the  money-lender 
shuddered  at  the  sound ;  and  good  spirits  came  and 
drove  them  back  into  the  shades  behind,  and  told  them 
that  they  had  overdone  their  work,  and  lit  up  the  eddies 
on  the  shining  stream  till  a  bright  young  face  looked 
out,  from  the  pale  light  lovingly  at  the  tempted  man, 
and  the  splashings  of  the  current  flowing  at  his  feet 
made  music  like  the  laughter  of  a  happy  child — a  child 
who  had  slumbered  in  his  arms,  and  clung  to  him  with 
soft,  unconscious  clingings  in  days  long  past ;  but  God 
had  loved  him,  and  taken  him  to  Himself,  and  spared 
him  now  awhile  from  his  rest  in  Paradise  to  come  and 
save  his  father  from  a  deadly  crime.  No,  he  could  not 
chuck  the  little  beggar  in.  He  was  as  his  own,  and 
his  own  was  a  baby-saint  in  the  strong  keeping  of  God, 


A   FRIEND  AFTER  DINNER.  153 

pleading  now  with  his  baby  voice  and  his  baby  smile 
for  the  sleeping  boy  whom  he  had  thought  to  murder. 
Good  spirits  had  the  best  of  it  this  time;  and  Mr. 
Burdock,  of  No.  5  Cat's  Alley,  Cornhill,  who  had  not 
said  his  prayers  for  twenty  years, — Mr.  Burdock,  the 
money-lender,  in  the  face  of  a  sore  temptation  and  a 
great  opportunity,  deliberately  chose  not  to  sin,  and 
for  once  at  least  in  his  maturer  life  turned  his  back  on 
hell. 

What,  then,  should  he  do?  Returning  to  the  house 
and  giving  up  the  child  was  penal  servitude  ;  and  Mr. 
Burdock  liked  to  be  at  large.  He  would  leave  it  at 
the  cottage,  and  declare  that  he  had  found  it  lying  in 
the  lane.  The  simple  country-folk  would  of  course 
believe  him.  He  crossed  the  bridge,  therefore,  and 
passed  through  the  little  garden  gate  and  knocked  at 
the  door.  The  door  was  opened  by  that  very  simple 
countryman — Mr.  Cuffs,  of  the  Dumplingshire  con- 
stabulary. 

By  this  time  the  baby  was  awake  and  crying  lustily. 
Perhaps  some  wise  mamma  will  say  that  it  could  not 
possibly  have  slept  so  long,  and  that  it  ought  to  have 
cried  with  cold  at  the  first  breath  of  the  chill  Novem- 
ber air.  If  so,  I  can  only  say  that  it  didn't.  This 
was  a  particularly  good  baby,  you  will  please  to  recol- 
lect ;  and  a  viscount  besides. 

"Well,  my  man,  what  have  you  got  there?"  de- 
manded the  policeman,  not  recognizing  in  Mr.  Bur- 
dock's personal  appearance  much  that  should  command 
respect. 

Mr.  Burdock  told  his  simple  story,  which  the  simple 
countryman   simply  disbelieved.      "  Found  it  in  the 


i54  LORD  APPLETREE  SEES 

lane,  did  you?  That  was  a  funny  thing  to  do.  I've 
walked  these  'ere  lanes  a  good  many  times,  my  chap, 
and  I  never  found  a  baby  yet  in  any  one  of  'em." 

"Confound  your  impertinence!"  exclaimed  the 
money-lender.  "Why,  how  do  you  suppose  I  came 
by  it,  then?  Take  the  child  directly,  and  keep  it  till 
its  mother  claims  it.  I  can't  stand  talking  here  all 
night.     I've  got  a  train  to  catch." 

"What  train  was  you  going  to  catch,  sir?"  asked 
the  policeman,  rather  more  civilly. 

"  10.20  night  mail  up,  at  Withycombe  Road,  if  you 
want  to  know.     Here,  take  the  child." 

"Give  it  here  to  me,"  said  a  pale,  careworn  woman, 
who  looked  very  much  as  if  her  husband  beat  her. 
Mr.  Burdock  stepped  into  the  room,  only  too  glad  to 
get  the  baby  out  of  his  arms ;  and  Mr.  Cuffs  shut  the 
door  behind  him,  locked  it,  seized  the  poker  in  one 
hand  and  a  big  stick  in  the  other,  and  requested  his 
visitor  to  take  a  seat. 

The  money-lender  looked  eagerly  round  the  room 
for  weapons,  but  there  was  no  weapon  left  to  him,  un- 
less he  could  handle  dexterously  a  saucepan  or  a  chair. 
Then  he  looked  at  the  policeman,  and  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  it  would  be  a  losing  game  to  fight  him, 
even  if  he  should  be  despoiled  of  the  stick  and  poker. 
So  he  sat  down  by  the  fire,  and  contemplated  the  situa- 
tion. 

"Why,  it's  her  ladyship's  baby!"  cried  Mrs.  Cuffs 
at  last.  "  I  thought  it  couldn't  be  nothink  else,  by  all 
this  'ere  lace  and  satting. " 

"And  pray,  sir,  how  come  you  to  find  her  ladyship's 
baby  a  lying  in  the  lane?"  inquired  the  policeman. 


A   FRIEND  AFTER  DINNER.  155 

"  Now,  sir,  you  had  best  tell  me  all  about  it.  I  may- 
be able  to  help  you.  There  ain't  no  time  to  waste, 
neether ;  for  the  moment  our  people  at  the  great  house 
finds  it  out,  they're  certain  sure  to  send  down  to  me." 
And  here  the  policeman  telegraphed  to  his  companion, 
by  mysterious  winks  and  smiles,  an  intimation  that 
members  of  the  force  were  not  above  taking  a  job  in 
hand,  if  it  were  made  worth  their  while. 

Mr.  Burdock  knew  a  villain  when  he  saw  one,  and 
justly  determined  that  he  saw  one  now.  There  was 
no  chance  for  him   but   to  enter  with  the  man  into 

» 

a  partnership  of  villainy,  and  forget  the  voice  of 
his  baby  by  the  riverside.  He  had  meant  to  do  right, 
but  good  spirits  had  not  made  it  easy  enough  for  him, 
and  he  must  set  out  once  more  on  the  road  to  hell. 

"Send  the  woman  away,"  said  he,  at  length,  "and 
I  will  tell  you  all  about  it." 

"Go  up-stairs  to  bed,"  said  the  policeman  to  his 
wife,  much  in  the  tone  in  which  he  would  have  bidden 
his  dog  "go  home."  "And  if  you  was  to  give  the 
child  some  suck,  maybe  he'd  shut  up  his  jabber.  She 
had  a  baby  of  her  own,"  he  explained  to  Mr.  Burdock, 
"some  months  ago,  and  lost  it.  Now, -sir,  we'll  get 
to  business,  if  you  please." 

Then  was  concocted  as  pretty  a  piece  of  rascality  as 
bad  men  and  bad  spirits  could  devise  between  them. 
The  simple  countryman's  calculations  were  simplicity 
itself.  "  If  I  takes  this  'ere  baby  up  to  the  house,"  he 
considered,  "  I  shall  get  a  ten-pun  note  for  a  doing  of 
my  duty,  besides  the  reward  of  a  good  conscience, 
which  will  be  highly  gratifying.  But  if  I  keeps  the 
infant  here,  and  makes  believe  that  this  'ere  chap's  a 


156  LORD  APPLETREE  SEES 

bolted,  why,  I  shall  make  something  tidy  out  of  him 
for  a  hushing  of  it  up,  and  very  likely  be  sent  off  in 
pursoot  by  his  lordship,  with  a  decentish  lot  of  money 
for  traveling  expenses.  And  what  a  comfort  it  '11  be 
to  my  dear  wife,  as  has  gone  through  such  a  deal  of 
suffering,  to  have  a  real  live  young  lord  to  suckle  !" 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  he,  at  the  end  of  a  long  conversa- 
tion, "  them's  my  terms.  Fifty  pounds  a  quarter  paid 
regular  in  advance,  to  whatever  address  I  send.  Me 
and  my  missus  will  take  the  child,  and  go  abroad  in 
chase,  and  stay  there  till  we  catches  the  perpetrator  of 
this  'ere  deed  of  darkness — or,  till  the  fifty  pounds  a 
quarter  ceases  to  come  regular.  Then  we  shall  return 
to  our  native  country,  after  a  fruitless  search  in  foreign 
parts;  and  if  we  shouldn't  happen  to  find  Mr.  Bur- 
dock at  home  when  we  calls  at  No.  5  Cat's  Alley, 
Cornhill,  perhaps  by  traveling  a  little  farther  westward 
we  may  hear  of  him  somewhere  else,  and  light  upon 
the  baby,  quite  by  accident,  at  the  same  time.  If 
either  the  infant  or  his  lordship  dies,  and  you  gets 
your  cash  from  Mr.  Pippin,  the  allowance  to  be 
doubled  so  long  as  we  holds  our  tongues ;  and  if  the  boy 
lives  till  he's  eight  years  old,  another  hundred  a  year 
to  be  tacked  on  for  the  expenses  of  his  education. 
We'll  have  all  that  down  in  black  and  white,  sir,  afore 
we  parts  company,  and  we'll  have  it  signed  in  your 
proper  name ;  and  so  long  as  you  sticks  honorable  to 
me,  you  may  depend  that  I'll  stick  honorable  to 
you." 

"  How  the  devil  do  you  know  my  proper  name?" 
exclaimed  Mr.  Burdock,  turning  pale,  and  starting 
from  his  chair. 


A   FRIEND  AFTER  DINNER.  j^y 

"I  knows  names  when  I  hears  'em,  sir,  as  well  as 
most ;  and  I  knows  faces  when  I  sees  'em ;  and  I 
knows  false  beards  from  true.  You  was  very  prudent 
not  to  risk  a  tussle  with  me,  sir,  just  now.  The  beard 
might  have  come  off,  you  know,  or  got  itself  twisted 
round  behind  your  neck,  like  them  things  the  women 
wears  in  church  a  Sundays." 

The  money-lender  ground  his  teeth  with  rage  at 
finding  himself  so  completely  in  the  simple  country- 
man's power.  But  he  had  to  sign  the  paper,  never- 
theless; and  he  did  not  sign  it  in  the  name  of  Bur- 
dock. 

"I'm  afeard  you  won't  catch  the  10.20  up  mail,  sir," 
observed  Mr.  Cuffs,  when  the  transaction  was  com- 
pleted ;  "  but  perhaps  the  11.35  down  train  might  take 
you  a  trifle  nearer  home." 

"Never  you  mind  whether  I  go  up  or  down,"  re- 
torted Mr.  Burdock,  angrily. 

"  Would  you  like  to  see  the  baby  again  before  you 
go,  sir,  just  to  say  good-by?  My  missus  will  bring 
him  down  in  a  minute,  if  you  want  to  kiss  him,  or 
anything." 

"The  baby  be  hanged,"  replied  the  money-lender, 
"and  your  missus  too."  And  then  he  started  off, 
walking  briskly  through  the  moonlight,  to  catch  neither 
the  up  train  nor  the  down,  but  to  reach  in  moderate 
time  a  wayside  inn,  lying  in  the  opposite  direction  to 
the  station  at  Withycombe  Road  ;  at  which  inn  he  had 
engaged  a  bed. 

The  child  had  been  carried  off  at  nine  o'clock,  but 
it  was  half-past  ten  before  his  mother  missed  him,  and 
half-past   twelve  at  least  before  she  could  believe  that 


153 


LORD  APPLE  TREE  SEES 


he  was  really  gone.     Every  corner  of  the  huge  man- 
sion was  searched,  every  cupboard  ransacked,  every 
curtain    drawn.       Bells    echoed    discordant    jinglings 
from  room  to  corridor ;  maids  fluttered  in  wild  confu- 
sion from  staircase  to  hall ;  men  shouted  and  women 
screamed  ;  the  earl  raved  and  swore ;  and  the  countess- 
cook  flung  herself  upon  the  empty  cradle,  and  felt  and 
felt  and  felt  again,  but  could  not  feel  the  short,  chubby 
legs,  and  shoulders  buried  in  their  fat,  or  count  like 
treasures  one  by  one  the  little  tiny  toes ;  for  all  was  blank 
and  desolate,  and  her  darling  had  been  snatched  away. 
At  eleven  o'clock  a  servant  went  off  in  haste  to  fetch 
Mr.  Cuffs  the  policeman,  who  received  instructions  to 
scour  the  country  round,  and  came  back  very  shortly 
afterwards  to  report  that  he  was  already  on  the  scent. 
A  person  answering  to  the  description  given  of  Mr. 
Burdock,  of  No.  5  Cat's  Alley,  Cornhill,  had    been 
observed  to  hurry  through  the  village,  and  past  the 
public  house  on  the  station  road,  intent  undoubtedly 
on  catching  the  10.20  train  for  Paddington.     He  bore 
a  suspicious-looking  burden  in  his  arms,  which  might 
have  been  a  baby,  or  might  have  been  a  pig ;  but  the 
burden  showed  no  signs  of  life,  and  never  by  squeak  or 
squeal  betrayed  its  interest  in  the  extreme  originality 
of  the  position  in  which  it  was  being  held.     This  was 
conclusive   enough.      Mr.    Burdock   had   carried   the 
child  to  London ;  and  the  policeman  received  a  com- 
mission from  the  earl  to  start  instantly  in  pursuit,  was 
furnished  with  fifty  sovereigns  for  immediate  use,  and 
was  invested  moreover  with  discretionary  powers  to 
exceed  that  sum  by  any  amount  he  pleased,  if  only  the 
infant  might  be  recovered. 


A  FRIEND  AFTER   DINNER. 


159 


"  Should  you  object,  my  lord,"  asked  Mr.  Cuffs,  "  to 
my  taking  my  wife  along  with  me  ?  She's  an  uncom- 
mon 'cute  woman,  though  I  says  it  as  shouldn't.  She'll 
fish  and  fish  and  find  out  lots  of  things  that  a  man  could 
never  come  nowheres  nigh.  And  when  we  gets  hold 
of  his  little  lordship,  as  I  make  no  doubt  we  shall  to- 
morrow, she'll  be  a  bit  handier  than  I  should  be  about 
carrying  of  him  home." 

This  proposition  seemed  reasonable  enough,  and  Mr. 
Cuffs  was  complimented  on  his  sagacity.  By  all  means 
let  him  take  his  wife  ;  and  the  sooner  they  were  off,  the 
better. 

From  London  Mr.  Cuffs  telegraphed  the  information 
that  the  perpetrator  of  the  deed  of  darkness  had  availed 
himself  of  the  South  Eastern  Railway  Company's  short 
sea-passage,  and  had  taken  two  first-class  tickets  through 
to  Cologne.  By  the  evening's  post  lie  wrote  at  greater 
length  to  say  that  he  himself  should  cross  that  night, 
accompanied  of  course  by  his  faithful  wife  ;  that  he  had 
ascertained,  for  Lady  Appletree's  consolation,  that  the 
perpetrator  had  a  female  with  him,  and  that  the  infant 
was  alive  and  well ;  and  further  that  he  would  be  much 
beholden  to  his  lordship  if  he  would  procure  his  dis- 
charge from  the  chief  constable  of  the  county,  so  that 
he  might  be  free  to  prolong  the  search  into  distant  parts 
of  the  continent,  in  case  the  search  should  have  to  be 
prolonged.  Should  the  perpetrator  be  speedily  caught, 
and  his  prey  be  rescued  from  his  grasp,  Mr.  Cuffs  pro- 
posed to  forego  the  rural  delights  of  Withycombe,  and 
to  seek  employment  as  a  detective  in  some  more  ex- 
tended sphere.  His  wife  had  displayed  such  eminent 
talent  for  fishing  and  finding  that  he  could  not  do  her 


!6o  LORD  APPLETREE    SEES,  ETC. 

the  injustice  to  bury  her  any  longer  in  a  secluded  vil- 
lage so  far  from  town.  In  any  case,  therefore,  he 
should  be  glad  to  have  his  discharge ;  and  another  fifty 
pounds  or  so  placed  to  his  credit  at  some  bank  in  Co- 
logne would  enable  him  to  follow  the  perpetrator's  track 
with  greater  facility. 

Lord  Appletree  procured  the  discharge,  and  sent  the 
fifty  pounds ;  and  though  he  could  not  but  feel,  as  a 
county  magistrate,  that  the  Dumplingshire  constabulary 
had  sustained  an  almost  irreparable  loss,  he  congratu- 
lated himself  on  the  happy  circumstance  that  their  loss 
was  his  gain,  and  that  so  able  an  incipient  detective  as 
Mr.  Cuffs,  and  so  'cute  a  fisher  and  finder  as  his  ami- 
able wife,  could  hardly  fail  to  drag  the  perpetrator  of 
the  deed  of  darkness  ignominiously  home,  and  to  re- 
store, to  his  own  and  his  countess-cook's  embraces, 
John  Viscount  Russet,  the  Withycombe  son  and  heir. 


MR.  GOGGS  ACKNOWLEDGES,  ETC.         ^i 


CHAPTER  XL 

MR.  GOGGS  ACKNOWLEDGES   THE   RECEIPT   OF   A 
VALENTINE. 

The  Christmas  holidays  came  and  passed  away,  and 
the  boys  of  the  Dumplington  Grammar-School  re- 
turned to  their  master  and  mistress  to  be  farmed  for 
the  season. 

A  very  flourishing  establishment,  just  now,  had  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Goggs.  The  schoolmaster  was  putting  money 
by.  A  year's  "devotion"  to  her  domestic  duties  had 
taught  his  treasure  of  a  wife  what  was  the  very  lowest 
scale  of  rations  on  which  great  hearty  growing  boys 
might  safely  be  kept  without  becoming  pale  and  thin 
enough  to  justify  the  interference  of  their  friends. 
Pimples,  no  doubt,  would  frequently  appear,  and  faces 
flush  unhealthily  with  exercise  which  the  ill-nurtured 
frame  was  not  strong  enough  to  bear.  But  trifling 
ailments  such  as  these  were  signs,  in  the  schoolmis- 
tress's eyes,  of  an  overfed  stomach  and  a  bilious  con- 
stitution. A  couple  of  days  in  the  sick-room  would 
set  all  to  rights,  and  so  many  ounces  of  meat  and  pud- 
ding might  be  entered  in  the  housekeeper's  book  as 
saved.  If  a  couple  of  days  in  the  sick-room  did  not 
set  all  to  rights,  the  doctor  would  be  summoned,  and 

ii 


j62  MR.   GOCGS  ACKNOWLEDGES 

a  small  commission  charged  upon  his  bill.  By  the 
time  the  pimple  had  developed  into  a  boil,  and  the 
flushed  face  had  become  freckled  with  feverish  spots, 
it  would  be  manifest  to  all  beholders  that  the  boy  came 
of  an  unhealthy  stock,  that  nothing  but  Mrs.  Goggs's 
tender  nursing  could  have  kept  him  alive  so  long,  and 
that  his  parents  ought  to  be  made  to  pay  at  least  ten 
pounds  per  annum  extra,  in  consideration  of  the  un- 
wearying attentions  he  received.  The  idea  that  sickly 
faces  arose  from  writing  impositions  all  day  long  in  a 
fusty  schoolroom,  or  that  pimples  were  generated  by 
meager  insufficient  food,  was  too  preposterous  to  be 
entertained  by  any  one  with  intellect  more  acute  than 
a  stupid,  prejudiced,  grumbling,  discontented,  ungrate- 
ful boy. 

In  her  "devotion"  to  the  boys,  Mrs.  Goggs  grew 
more  and  more  assiduous  every  day.  From  opening 
hampers,  she  had  now  arrived  at  opening  letters — such 
was  her  motherly  care.  The  postman's  bag  was  laid 
on  the  breakfast-table  at  eight  o'clock,  and  the  letters 
turned  over  carefully  one  by  one  with  their  directions 
downwards.  "Please 'em,  that's  for  me!"  cried  an 
innocent  child  of  nine  and  a  half,  as  he  recognized  his 
father's  big  blue  envelope  and  great  red  seal,  on  his 
second  morning  at  school.  The  innocent  child  was 
speedily  taught  to  know  his  place.  His  letter  was 
carried,  along  with  all  the  rest,  into  Mrs.  Goggs's  sit- 
ting-room, where  notes  could  be  taken  of  those  that 
could  be  readily  opened,  and  conjectures  formed  re- 
specting those  that  couldn't;  and  it  was  delivered  to 
him  after  tea,  with  an  intimation  that  sealed  dispatches 
were  against  the  rules  of  the  school,  implying  as  they 


THE  RECEIPT  OF  A    VALENTINE. 


163 


did  a  reflection  on  the  schoolmaster's  integrity,  and 
that  she  should  very  much  like  to  know,  should  Mrs. 
Goggs,  whether  Croft  minor's  father  thought  that  she 
was  going  to  trouble  herself  to  open  his  dirty  letters  to 
his  boy.  Croft  minor  did  not  fail  to  request  accordingly 
that  his  father  would  conform  to  the  rules  of  the  school ; 
nor  did  his  father  ever  thenceforward  fail  to  write  to  his 
son  regularly  once  a  week,  securing  his  big  blue  envel- 
ope with  a  seal  about  the  size  of  two  half-crowns,  and 
printing  an  enormous  PRIVATE  on  the  outside.  "A 
very  ungentlemanly  person,  that  Colonel  Croft,  my 
dear,"  observed  Mrs.  Goggs  to  the  farmer.  What 
Colonel  Croft's  opinion  may  have  been  concerning 
Mrs.  Goggs,  does  not  appear. 

In  Dumplington,  at  any  rate,  opinions  concerning 
Mrs.  Goggs  were  for  the  most  part  flattering.  The 
motherly  woman  made  friends  out  of  the  mammon  of 
gifts  which,  if  welcome  to  those  on  whom  they  were 
bestowed,  could  scarcely  be  considered  costly.  At- 
tached to  the  school-house  was  a  large  and  highly  pro- 
ductive garden,  the  fruits  of  which  were  liberally  dis- 
pensed among  the  schoolmistress's  immediate  favorites 
in  the  town.  Occasionally  she  had  aspired  even  to 
extend  the  limits  of  her  acquaintance  by  means  of 
some  obsequious  present  of  strawberries  or  pears ;  and 
once  at  least  she  had  been  very  handsomely  snubbed 
for  her  pains.  "  Nightshade,"  said  she,  one  morning, 
"  take  this  fruit  with  my  compliments  to  Miss  Stuart, 
and  mind  you  don't  eat  any  of  it."  The  boy,  blush- 
ing with  shame,  and  with  tears  starting  out  of  his 
great  blue  eyes,  took  the  basket,  and  met  Dr.  Stuart  at 
the  hall  door.     "  My  compliments  to  Mrs.   Goggs," 


1 64  MR.  GOGGS  ACKNOWLEDGES 

said  the  doctor,  "  and  I  have  not  the  pleasure  of  know- 
ing her.  If  I  had,  I  should  suggest  that  the  good 
things  growing  in  the  schoolmaster's  garden  were  in- 
tended not  for  his  friends,  but  for  his  hungry  boys. 
Stay,  Willie.  I  know  you  won't  dare  to  tell  her  what 
I  say,  so  I'll  write  it  down.  Upon  my  word,  I've 
half  a  mind  now  to  take  the  strawberries,  and  give 
them  to  you,  for  the  fun  of  seeing  you  pitch  into 
them." 

"She  told  me  to  be  sure  and  not  eat  any  of  them," 
said  Willie,  laughing. 

"She  didn't !  Come,  I  can't  believe  that,  even  of 
her.  By  George,  she  shall  have  the  message."  And 
she  had  it ;  and  she  never  made  insinuating  little  ad- 
vances to  Dr.  Stuart  or  his  sister  again. 

Willie  Nightshade  was  one  of  the  very  few  among 
the  "founder's  boys"  who  had  won  their  way  to 
popularity  among  their  schoolfellows  at  Dumplington. 
Tradition  had  ruled  for  ages  past  that  the  "  white 
tassel"  fellows  were  snobs;  and  such  traditions  are 
not  lightly  broken  through.  Of  Willie,  however,  no- 
body thought  one  atom  the  worse  because  his  father 
made  coffins  and  paid  the  schoolmaster  Nothing  a 
year.  Harry  Northcote  and  Frank  Teasel  were  his 
especial  friends,  but  the  whole  school  liked  him  ;  and 
you  might  be  certain  that  wherever  he  went,  in  boy- 
hood or  manhood,  he  would  be  liked  by  all  the  world. 
He  was  a  fine,  manly  fellow,  good  at  games,  plucky  in 
the  miniature  perils  of  schoolboy  life,  eager  after  mis- 
chievous adventures,  and  caring  no  more  for  old  Goggs 
than  for  old  Goggs's  maternal  aunt.  But  if  old  Goggs 
had  had  the  wit  to  manage  him,  Willie  would  have 


THE  RECEIPT  OE  A    VALENTINE. 


165 


cared  for  him  a  good  deal.  There  was  a  tenderness,  a 
gentle  winning  sweetness,  about  the  boy,  which  opened 
many  avenues  to  his  heart,  for  those  who  knew  how  to 
find  them.  But  what  had  Mr.  Goggs  to  do  with  ten- 
derness, save  in  his  mutton  and  his  green  peas  ?  Half 
the  consideration  displayed  towards  Willie,  which  he 
lavished  on  his  asparagus,  would  have  set  the  boy  won- 
dering for  days  and  nights  what  he  could  do  to  show 
old  Goggs  that  he  was  grateful.  Not  many  boys  can 
afford  to  let  you  see  that  their  affections  are  strong  and 
their  feelings  deep,  lest  you  should  think  them  priggish 
or  unreal ;  but  you  would  never  have  thought  this  of 
Willie.  High  spirits  and  exercise  had  made  him  a 
downright  English  boy ;  his  mother,  with  early  lessons 
in  unselfish  thoughtfulness  for  others,  had  made  him  a 
gentleman ;  and  God,  working  with  him  in  secret 
hours,  had  made  him  something  better  than  either — a 
child  of  his  very  own,  pure  and  brave  and  true.  Wil- 
lie's home  was  not  a  very  happy  one,  for  his  mother 
had  died  when  he  was  only  twelve  years  old,  and  his 
father,  by  way  of  a  set-off  against  his  professional  mel- 
ancholy, had  married  a  fashionable  fine  lady,  covered 
with  affectations,  and  vulgar  to  the  last  degree.  She 
hated  children  almost  as  much  as  Mrs.  Goggs;  but  at 
least  she  was  honest  enough,  with  such  antipathies,  not 
to  keep  a  school. 

On  Sundays,  Willie  was  a  chorister  in  the  Cathedral 
choir — an  honorary  office  which  he  was  permitted  to 
hold  in  consideration  of  his  magnificent  voice  and  in- 
tense passion  for  music — honorary,  because  the  estima- 
tion in  which  Cathedral  choirs  are  popularly  held 
forbids  that  any  rank  therein  should  be  pronounced 


1 66  MR.  GOGGS  ACKNOWLEDGES 

honorable.  The  associations  of  a  day  which  had  better 
be  forgotten  have  taught  us  that  no  gentleman  can  pos- 
sibly condescend  to  the  position  of  lay  clerk  or  singing- 
man,  and  that  no  gentleman's  son  ought  to  be  asked  to 
degrade  himself  by  standing  up  in  a  surplice  and  chant- 
ing psalms  to  the  praise  of  God.  Music,  as  all  the 
world  knows,  is  a  common,  despicable  trade.  You 
enjoy  your  concert  or  your  pianoforte  recital,  just  as 
you  enjoy  your  sweetbread  and  leg  of  lamb ;  but  you 
would  no  more  sit  at  table  with  the  musician  who  has 
charmed  you,  than  you  would  invite  your  kitchen-maid 
to  dinner.  Without  doubt,  the  musician  would  some- 
times prove  queer  company.  But  whose  fault  is  that? 
If  you  will  persist  in  snubbing  the  entire  profession,  in 
offering  not  a  single  prize  to  those  who  enter  it,  and  in 
forcing  men  of  European  reputation  to  slave  for  fifty 
hours  a  week  at  the  very  drudgery  of  their  calling, 
because  it  does  not  pay  them  to  cultivate  the  art  artis- 
tically, you  can  scarcely  be  surprised  that  educated 
men,  who  don't  like  being  snubbed,  should  for  the 
most  part  seek  openings  for  themselves  in  a  more  con- 
genial sphere.  From  the  very  top  to  the  very  bottom, 
in  every  phase  of  life,  musicians  are  everywhere  made 
to  know  that  the  British  public  will  be  good  enough  to 
tolerate  them  for  the  pleasure  they  afford,  and  will 
trouble  them  to  keep  their  distance  when  the  pleasure 
has  been  afforded.  And  so  it  must  needs  continue  to 
be,  until  official  appointments  in  the  musical  world  are 
habitually  bestowed  upon  persons  of  higher  rank  in  the 
social  scale.  The  connection  between  personal  caste 
and  professional  duties  is  closer  than  many  people  will 
allow ;  and  no  man  ever  thoroughly  recovers  in  the  one 


THE  RECEIPT  OF  A    VALENTINE.  167 

capacity  a  stigma  cast  upon  him  in  the  other.  The 
musician  proves  queer  company  at  dinner,  because  you 
took  him  from  among  queer  companions,  and  put  him 
in  a  false  position ;  because  when  he  was  a  chorister  he 
made  dirt-pies  in  the  gutter,  and  when  he  grew  up  to 
be  an  organist  you  offered  him  a  salary  of  forty  pounds. 
Let  our  universities  endow  their  chairs  of  music  with  a 
thousand  pounds  a  year,  and  our  Cathedrals  elect  none 
but  gentlemen,  and  sons  of  gentlemen,  into  their  choirs, 
and  the  most  foolish  of  all  foolish  prejudices  will  begin 
to  be  done  away.  Then,  from  the  very  top  to  the  very 
bottom,  as  popular  estimation  has  fixed  the  order  of 
precedence,  will  musicians,  like  other  men,  be  taken 
for  what  they  are  worth.  Each  one,  according  to  his 
merits,  will  hold  his  own,  as  he  ought  to  do,  with  the 
parson,  the  doctor,  and  the  lawyer  ;  the  profession  will 
become  as  honorable  as  it  is  now  not  unnaturally 
despised  ;  the  seedy  threadbare  devotees  thereof  will 
retire,  and  seek  a  decent  competence  elsewhere;  and 
we  shall  no  longer  feel  astonished  rather  than  otherwise 
when  we  hear  a  pianoforte-teacher  sound  an  H,  or  see 
him  place  upon  his  key-board  such  a  pair  of  hands  as 
civilized  persons  commonly  display. 

The  pianoforte-teacher  who  had  the  honor  of  in- 
structing Willie  Nightshade  was  moderately  well  at 
home  with  all  the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  and  was 
especially  proud  of  his  long,  tapering  fingers  and  irre- 
proachable hands.  But  it  was  little  enough  that  he 
did  for  Willie.  Progress  in  music,  like  progress  in 
everything  else  at  Dumplington,  was  strictly  "  op- 
tional." If  a  boy  chose  to  do  his  work,  he  did  it; 
if  he  didn't  choose,  nobody  made  him.     "Just  play 


168  MR.  GOGGS  ACKNOWLEDGES 

your  piece  over,"  the  master  would  say,  as  he  left  the 
room  at  the  beginning  of  the  lesson  ;  "I  shall  be  back 
again  directly." — "Ah,  yes,"  he  would  resume,  saun- 
tering in  at  the  end  of  the  half-hour;  "  that  will  do 
for  to-day.  And,  by-the-by,  Nightshade,  you  need 
not  come  again  this  week.  I  will  give  you  a  holiday  /" 
It  is  thus  that  masters  earn  their  money  in  grammar- 
schools  and  academies;  where,  as  everybody  knows,  so 
much  more  "individual  attention"  is  given  to  boys 
than  at  great  overgrown  places  like  Eton,  or  Winchester, 
or  Harrow. 

Willie  was  a  cleverish  lad,  and  one  from  whose  suc- 
cesses Mr.  Goggs  hoped  to  gain  some  credit,  if  his 
father  should  hereafter  send  him  up  to  Oxford — for 
Dumplingshire  was  a  southwestern  county,  where 
Oxford  glories  were  triumphant,  and  schoolboys  reck- 
oned Cambridge  as  somewhere  about  on  a  level  with 
St.  Bees.  Possibly  the  red  hood  may  have  dazzled 
with  its  splendor  certain  youths  of  an  aesthetic  turn ; 
and  it  must  be  confessed  that  there  was  nothing  spe- 
cially attractive  to  the  eye  in  the  very  dirty-white 
garment  which  hung  like  a  clothes-bag  behind  the  back 
of  the  Rev.  Goggs,  M.A.,  when  he  read  Prayers  in 
chapel.  Of  course  the  schoolmaster  was  far  too  judi- 
cious to  let  Willie  know  that  his  talents  were  above 
the  average.  Lest  the  boy  should  grow  conceited  over 
his  gifts,  he  gave  him  constantly  to  understand  that  he 
was  a  born  fool.  Six  times  in  every  lesson  at  least 
was  the  well-known  anathema  thundered  out  against 
the  whole  form:  "Well,  I  must  say,  that  of  all  the 
stupid  idiots  that  ever  I  had  to  do  with  since  first  I 
kept  a  school,  you  boys  are  the  stupidest.     Your  idle- 


THE  RECEIPT  OF  A    VALENTINE.  169 

ness,  and  carelessness,  and  stubbornness  are  intolerable. 
I  never  did  see  such  a  set  of  blockheads  in  all  my  life, 
I  do  declare."  So  touching  a  remonstrance  ought, 
one  would  think,  to  have  moved  even  schoolboys  to 
compunction,  and  brought  into  their  brazen  cheeks 
the  consciousness  of  shame.  The  fact  that  the  rev- 
erend gentleman  had  said  precisely  the  same  thing  in 
precisely  the  same  words  to  every  boy  who  had  ever 
been  up  before  him  with  a  lesson,  may  perhaps  suggest 
a  reason  why  the  touching  remonstrance  moved  nobody, 
and  produced  no  impression  of  any  kind. 

Willie  Nightshade  had  a  facility  in  the  knack  of 
rhyming,  wherewith  he  beguiled  many  a  tedious  half- 
hour  in  school.  Once  he  ventured  to  show  up  an 
ode  of  Horace  translated  into  verse,  but  his  judicious 
master  very  properly  snubbed  him,  and  made  him  write 
it  out  six  times  in  prose.  Mr.  Goggs  never  missed  a 
chance  of  setting  impositions.  He  dealt  out  thousands 
of  lines  with  a  profusion  which  proved  the  uncalcu- 
lating  largeness  of  his  mind.  If  the  lines  had  been 
intended  to  be  learned  by  heart  instead  of  written,  and 
Mr.  Goggs  had  been  kept  in  school  to  hear  them,  his 
liberality  in  dispensing  them  might  have  been  less 
excessive.  As  it  happened,  impositions  cost  him 
nothing  but  the  trouble  of  tearing  them  up  when 
they  were  done.  "I  cannot  think,  my  dear,"  said 
the  Dumplington  boy's  papa  to  the  Dumplington  boy's 
mamma,  as  he  endeavored,  not  always  with  success,  to 
decipher  his  son's  manuscript  over  the  breakfast-table, 
— "  I  cannot  think  what  makes  Charlie  send  home  such 
villainous  letters !  He  used  to  write  capitally  before 
he  went  to  school.     I  am  afraid  Mr.  Goggs  does  not 


170 


MR.   GOGGS  ACKNOWLEDGES 


practice  him  much  in  writing."  If  the  Dumplington 
boy's  papa  could  have  watched  the  Dumplington  boy 
on  a  fine  half-holiday,  as  he  appeared  in  the  schoolroom 
with  his  head  upon  his  desk,  scribbling  for  his  life  with 
a  spluttering  steel  pen  at  the  rate  of  sixty  words  a 
minute,  so  as  to  get  his  five  hundred  lines  finished  by 
tea-time,  he  must  have  acknowledged  that  he  had  done 
the  worthy  man  an  injustice  ;  that  Mr.  Goggs  gave  his 
pupils  practice  enough,  and  something  over ;  and  that 
the  "excellent  schoolmaster"  was  taking  every  possible 
precaution  to  insure,  not  only  that  the  boy  should  write 
illegibly  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  but  that  he  should 
abstain  from  injuring  his  health  by  too  much  exercise  in 
the  open  air,  and  should  acquire,  by  dint  of  incessant 
stoopings  and  contractions  of  the  chest,  as  pretty  a 
pair  of  round  shoulders  as  if  he  had  been  by  nature 
deformed. 

"Let's  send  old  Goggs  a  valentine,"  said  Willie 
Nightshade,  on  the  morning  of  the  13th  of  February. 
"You  can  get  some  awfully  hideous  ones  for  twopence, 
and  that's  just  about  what  he's  worth.  Mother  Goggs 
is  dead  certain  to  send  me  up  in  town  at  twelve,  be- 
cause she  knows  that  I  want  to  jump ;  and  then  I'll 
buy  one." 

Sure  enough,  when  school  was  over,  the  mistress's 
pleasant  face  appeared  at  the  door,  and  her  pleasant 
voice  summoned  Willie  into  the  passage  to  receive  his 
orders. 

"Four  yards  and  a  half  of  second-hand  flannel," 
reported  Willie,  on  his  return.  "That's  a  nice  sort  of 
thing  for  a  fellow  to  buy  !  And  I  am  to  match  this 
dirty  stuff  exactly.     I  believe  it's  a  bit  of  one  of  her 


THE  RECEIPT  OF  A    VALENTINE. 


171 


old  petticoats  !  If  Scraggs  won't  let  me  have  it  cheap, 
I've  got  to  go  to  Snooks;  and  if  Snooks  doesn't  take 
off  twopence-halfpenny  in  the  shilling,  I'm  to  tell  him 
that  Mother  Goggs  won't  deal  there  any  more.  What 
a  mean,  stingy  beggar  it  is  !  Well,  anyhow,  Goggs 
shall  have  his  valentine.  I  wonder  whether  I  could 
get  one  second-hand  for  a  penny  three-farthings  !" 

The  valentine  was  no  great  work  of  art,  representing 
simply  a  bottle-nosed  gentleman  in  pink  and  blue, 
with  a  birch  in  one  hand  and  a  dictionary  in  the  other. 
But  it  answered  the  purpose  sufficiently  well ;  and 
Willie  embellished  it  overleaf  with  some  appropriate 
verses,  composed  expressly  for  the  occasion  during  his 
numerous  leisure  moments  in  school.  In  the  evening 
it  was  sent  by  post ;  and  in  the  morning  it  came  safely 
to  hand, — safely,  but  not  quite  punctually,  the  letters 
being,  as  usual,  half  an  hour  late  on  that  day. 

Directly  after  breakfast  Willie  was  sent  up  in  town 
again,  to  bargain  for  a  dozen  yards  of  tape,  wherewith 
to  "bind"  the  second-hand  flannel.  On  his  way  he 
met  the  postman,  at  the  sight  of  whom  the  boy  ran  off 
speedily  to  execute  his  commission,  so  that  he  might 
get  back  to  school  again  in  time  to  see  the  fun.  But 
Scraggs  and  Snooks  were  hard-hearted  that  morning, 
having  risen  earlier  than  usual  to  get  their  windows 
dressed  out  for  market-day ;  and  they  would  by  no 
means  consent  to  Mrs.  Goggs's  liberal  terms.  "  We 
don't  do  business  in  that  way,"  said  Snooks.  "The 
lady  had  better  shop  elsewhere,"  suggested  Scraggs; 
"  for  it  doesn't  pay  a  respectable  house  to  have  dealings 
with  her." — "Pray,  sir,  may  I  ask,"  added  Scraggs's 
facetious  partner,  "  does  Mrs.  Goggs  dine  you  young 


1 72  MR.  GOGGS  ACKNOWLEDGES 

gents  off  second-hand  mutton?"  Poor  Willie,  thor- 
oughly ashamed  of  his  errand,  tried  another  street,  and 
shopped  elsewhere  ;  but  it  was  nine  o'clock  before  he 
had  succeeded  in  driving  such  a  bargain  as  his  mistress 
would  be  likely  to  approve. 

At  twenty  minutes  to  nine,  Mr.  Goggs  rushed  into 
the  schoolroom  with  his  valentine,  pale  as  a  ghost,  and 
trembling  so  visibly  in  his  rage  that  the  bottle-nosed 
gentleman  danced  about  merrily,  and  the  appropriate 
verses  overleaf  rustled  and  fluttered  in  his  hand.  And 
these  were  the  appropriate  verses : — 

A    RIDDLE. 

Oh,  what  a  very  happy  life 

We  all  might  live  together, 
Through  cloud  or  sunshine,  peace  or  strife, 

And  calm  or  stormy  weather, 
If  only  we  were  rid  of  one 
Who  haunts  us  like  a  Christmas  dun  ; 
Whose  name — oh,  let  it  whispered  be — 
Begins  with  H,  and  ends  with  G. 

He  acts  so  plausible  a  part, 

You  ne'er  can  tell  for  certain 
What  mischief  lurks  within  his  heart, 

Behind  its  silky  curtain. 
No  honest  purpose  can  you  trace 
In  his  composed  and  smiling  face, 
Whose  name — oh,  let  it  whispered  be — 
Begins  with  H,  and  ends  with  G. 

He  tries  to  make  the  true  and  good 

Distrustful  of  each  other ; 
He  would  persuade  you,  if  he  could, 

To  doubt  your  very  brother. 


THE   RECEIPT  OF  A    VALENTINE.  173 

He  is  in  truth  the  deadliest  foe 
That  loving  hearts  can  ever  know, 
Whose  name — oh,  let  it  whispered  be — 
Begins  with  H,  and  ends  with  G. 

Then  here's  a  health  to  friends  sincere — 

The  friend  of  upright  dealing, 
Whose  eye  is  bright,  whose  conscience  clear, 

Who  scorns  all  base  concealing ! 
And  ever  overwhelmed  with  shame 
Be  he  who  bears  that  odious  name, 
Which — scarcely  whispered  shall  it  be — 
Begins  with  H,  and  ends  with  G. 

"Which  of  you  boys  sent  this  thing  to  me?"  stam- 
mered out  the  schoolmaster.  "  I  must  have  his  name 
instantly.  Who  was  it,  now?  If  I  don't  find  him  out, 
I'll  expel  him!" 

"Oh,  it  -was  you,  was  it?"  he  exclaimed,  addressing 
Harry  Northcote,  who,  in  spite  of  the  aw  fulness  of  the 
situation,  had  burst  out  laughing.  "  What  did  you  mean 
by  it,  eh — eh — eh — eh — EH?" 

"Please,  sir,  it  wasn't  me!"  said  Harry,  as  soon 
as  the  blows  showered  upon  his  face  and  head  by  the 
schoolmaster's  clammy  palm  would  give  him  time  to 
speak. 

"Then  who  was  it,  sir?"  demanded  his  relative, 
catching  him  by  the  hair.  "  None  of  your  shuffling, 
sir;  none  of  your  lies  !     Do  you  know  who  it  was?" 

"  Yes,  sir,"  answered  the  boy,  indignantly.  "  I  be- 
lieve I  do." 

"  You  believe  you  do  !  Then  I  believe  you  had  better 
tell  me,  unless  you  want  to  be  publicly  flogged,  and  then 
expelled." 

Harry  was  certainly  an  aggravating  boy.     He  did 


174 


MR.   GOGGS  ACKNOWLEDGES 


not  treat  his  distant  cousin  well.  He  might  have  kept 
his  secret,  and  refused  to  betray  his  friend,  without 
looking  up  at  his  master  in  defiance,  and  shaking  his 
head,  and  laughing  in  his  very  face.  So  at  least  his 
master  seemed  to  think  ;  for  he  seized  him  by  the  collar, 
and  dragged  him  to  his  throne  at  the  end  of  the  school- 
room, and  fumbled  in  the  pocket  of  his  copper-colored 
trousers  for  a  bunch  of  keys,  and  unlocked  his  desk, 
and  snatched  up  a  cane,  and  commanded  the  culprit  to 
"stand  round." 

"What  do  you  mean,  sir,"  he  shouted,  "by  calling 
me  a  Hog?  eh,  sir — what  do  you  mean?" 

"  Please,  sir,  I  didn't  call  you  a  Hog,"  said  Harry, 
who  was  grave  enough  and  pale  enough  now,  poor 
boy,  and  stood  anxiously  watching  for  the  descent  of 
the  cane. 

"  Well,  then — a  Herring,"  said  the  schoolmaster. 

"Please,  sir,  it  wasn't  a  Herring  either,"  answered 
Harry. 

"  Then  what  was  it,  sir?  Come,  I  see  you  know  all 
about  it.  What  other  word  is  there,  that  begins  with 
H  and  ends  with  G?  eh,  sir,  eh — eh — EH?" 

"Please,  sir,  I  think  it  was  meant  for  Humbug," 
said  the  boy,  who  could  not  help  being  impudent, 
though  he  knew  for  certain  that  he  was  going  to  be 
half  killed. 

Then  Mr.  Goggs  proceeded  to  half  kill  him,  while 
Crawford  and  one  or  two  of  the  bigger  fellows  held 
consultation  together  on  the  question  whether  or  not 
Harry  should  be  rescued,  and  the  schoolmaster  unde- 
ceived. At  last,  however,  they  decided  that  it  would 
be  the  truest  kindness  to  all  those  concerned,  even  at 


THE  RECEIPT  OF  A    VALENTINE.  175 

the  cost  of  sacrificing  the  innocent,  to  leave  the  rev- 
erend gentleman  in  his  error,  and  to  give  him  un- 
grudgingly whatever  rope  he  wanted,  that  he  might 
hang  himself  once  for  all.  And  most  effectually  was 
the  reverend  gentleman  straightway  suspended.  He 
had  just  laid  on  his  fortieth  cut,  and  smashed  his  fourth 
cane,  when  Willie,  along  with  half  a  dozen  day  boys, 
ran  into  the  room. 

"Please,  sir,"  he  cried,  grasping  the  position  of 
events,  "please,  sir,  it  was  not  Northcote — it  was 
me." 

"  Oh,  it  was  you,  was  it?"  returned  the  schoolmaster, 
attempting  the  satirical,  with  no  remarkable  success. 
"It  was  you.  Well,  sir,  I  won't  settle  with  you  just 
now.  It  was  you,  was  it?  Very  good.  Perhaps  you 
will  oblige  me  by  coming  this  way.  I  am  to  be  called 
a  Humbug,  and  a  Herring,  and  a  Hog,  by  such  as  you 
— the  son  of  an  undertaker,  and  a  founder's  boy  !  Very 
good.     Please  to  come  this  way." 

So  Willie  was  marched  off  to  a  lumber-room  at  the 
top  of  the  house — a  species  of  up-stairs  dungeon,  lit  by 
a  tiny  window  eight  feet  above  the  ground,  where  he 
had  neither  chair  nor  stool  to  sit  upon,  and  scarcely 
room  enough  to  curl  his  body  round  upon  the  floor. 
Here  the  son  of  an  undertaker  spent  the  day,  with  not 
so  much  as  a  lesson-book  to  entertain  him,  and  with 
one  scanty  meal  of  bread  and  water  for  the  refreshment 
of  his  mortal  frame.  Here  the  founder's  boy  passed 
the  night,  without  a  rug  to  cover  him  as  he  shivered  in 
the  cold ;  forced  to  crouch  down  for  rest  because  he 
was  too  stiff  to  stand,  though  the  draught  under  the 
door,  as  he   leaned  against  it,  cut  him   through  and 


176  MR.  GOGGS  ACKNOWLEDGES 

through.  It  was  a  dearish  price  to  pay  for  the  fun  of 
sending  old  Goggs  a  twopenny  valentine  with  appro- 
priate verses  overleaf. 

Towards  morning  he  dozed  off  to  sleep,  and  awoke 
soon  afterwards  with  a  strange  sensation  in  his  head, 
as  if  a  shower  of  gravel  had  fallen  on  him,  and  some 
heavy  substance  were  tapping  at  his  face.  Opening  his 
eyes,  and  realizing  events  one  by  one,  he  perceived 
that  a  Colenso's  Algebra,  tied  to  the  end  of  a  good, 
thick  rope,  had  been  thrown  through  the  window  from 
the  outside,  and  was  hanging  down  against  the  wall. 
Catching  hold  of  it,  he  felt  that  he  was  being  hoisted 
up;  but,  on  reaching  the  window,  he  saw  that  it  would 
be  impossible  to  get  through  it  until  the  broken  glass 
had  been  cleared  away.  This  was  a  long  and  weary 
process,  as  he  could  only  work  with  one  hand  at  a  time; 
but  at  last,  after  cutting  his  fingers  considerably,  and 
tearing  his  cuffs  and  sleeves  to  pieces,  by  using  them  as 
chisels  and  hammers,  he  contrived  to  set  the  narrow 
opening  sufficiently  free  from  glass  to  admit  of  his  body 
being  conveniently  squeezed  through.  In  less  than  five 
minutes  afterwards  he  had  stepped  out  upon  the  roof, 
secured  a  footing  on  the  low  parapet  which  ran  along 
its  eaves,  let  himself  down  some  twelve  or  fourteen  feet 
by  means  of  a  water-pipe  in  a  corner  between  two 
walls,  and  begun  with  furious  appetite  to  devour  some 
food  which  his  friend  Harry  Northcote  had  brought 
him. 

"What  a  brick  you  are,  Harry!"  said  he,  with  his 
mouth  full  of  mutton  pie.  "  It  is  so  awfully  jolly  to 
get  out  again.  I  feel  as  if  I  had  been  in  prison  for  a 
month.     How  ever  did  you  manage  it?" 


THE  RECEIPT  OF  A    VALENTINE.  I77 

"Why,  you  know,"  said  Harry,  "that  beast  Goggs 
made  a  speech  about  you  yesterday  afternoon,  and 
swore  at  you  like  mad  for  all  your  wickedness,  and 
gave  notice  that  he  should  make  an  example  of  you 
this  morning  at  twelve  o'clock  by  flogging  you  before 
the  whole  school  and  then  publicly  expelling  you.  I 
wasn't  going  to  stand  that,  you  know,  so  I  cut  up  in 
town  and  got  some  rope  and  a  lot  of  grub,  crawled 
out  on  to  the  leads  from  one  of  the  attic  windows  as 
soon  as  it  was  light  enough,  smashed  your  window, 
shoved  in  the  rope,  let  myself  down  by  the  pipe,  and 
— here  we  are  !     Hooray  !" 

"  Flog  me  and  expel  me  !"  repeated  Willie,  putting 
on  the  cap  which  his  friend  had  been  thoughtful  enough 
to  bring  with  him.  "  That's  awkward.  What  on  earth 
shall  I  do?" 

"Do?  why,  cut  home  to  breakfast,  and  persuade 
your  dad  to  take  you  away.  You'll  get  out  of  it  then 
beautifully." 

Willie  shook  his  head.  "  Very  much  obliged,  old 
fellow,"  said  he;  "and  that  reminds  me  that  I  have 
not  thanked  you  yet  for  the  licking  you  took  for  me 
yesterday  morning.  I  was  so  awfully  savage  when  I 
saw  that  brute  letting  out  at  you.  You  really  ought  to 
have  told  him  that  I  sent  it.  But  I  won't  go  home  to 
breakfast,  all  the  same.  I'd  sooner  go  back  to  my 
prison  again,  and  be  thrashed  and  expelled." 

"Ah,  I  forgot,"  said  Harry,  taking  his  friend's 
hand,  and  signifying,  with  genuine  schoolboy  delicacy, 
that  he  recollected  his  home  troubles.  "Then  there- 
is  only  one  thing  to  be  done.  Stop  here  you  simply 
sha'n't.      Let's  walk  quietly  off    to  Aleworth.      It's 

12 


I78  MR.   GOGGS  ACKNOWLEDGES 

only  ten  miles.  My  governor  is  sure  to  back  us  up ; 
and,  if  he  drives  us  in  again  this  afternoon,  and  has  a 
jaw  with  old  Goggs,  the  beast  won't  dare  to  touch 
either  you  or  me." 

Willie  was  still  hesitating,  when  all  hesitation  came 
of  necessity  to  an  end,  on  the  sudden  appearance  of 
an  individual  with  whom  the  Dumplington  boys  had 
long  ago  declared  eternal  war.  The  trustees  of  Wood- 
ruff's Charity  had  secured  the  services  not  only  of  an 
"excellent  schoolmaster,"  and  a  mistress  who  "de- 
voted herself  to  the  boys,"  but  also  of  a  strict  and 
conscientious  beadle- in-plain-clothes,  who  prowled 
about  the  playground  as  a  spy  over  the  young  gentle- 
men's games;  so  that  at  all  times,  in  school  and  out  of 
school,  a  wholesome  discipline  might  be  maintained. 
The  beadle  was  as  worthy  of  the  schoolmaster,  as  the 
schoolmaster  was  worthy  of  his  "devoted"  wife. 
Whatever  opportunity  lay  within  his  power,  of  inter- 
fering with  such  few  pleasures  as  the  boys  were  permitted 
to  enjoy,  that  opportunity  did  Mr.  Toadflax  eagerly 
seize.  If  a  cricket-ball  were  hit  off  the  green,  so  that 
it  rolled  a  yard  or  two  down  the  street,  the  beadle 
picked  it  up,  put  it  in  his  pocket,  and  conveyed  it 
\ome.  If  a  carriage  happened  to  pass  while  two  little 
fellows  were  running  an  exciting  race,  the  beadle 
interposed  his  ungainly  figure,  and  stopped  the  fun — 
lest  the  horses  should  plunge  with  terror,  or  the  coach- 
man have  a  fit  and  fall  into  the  road.  Once  every 
day  at  least  was  some  incorrigible  lad  reported  to  the 
master  for  grossly  insulting  Mr.  Toadflax  by  calling 
him  "the  most  shocking  names,"  or  for  endangering 
his  very  life  by  kicking  the  football  "  right  straight  at 


THE  RECEIPT  OF  A    VALENTINE.  i7q 

him."  The  name  which  shocked  Mr.  Toadflax  more 
perhaps  than  any  other,  and  that  with  which  the  boys 
took  especial  delight  in  honoring  him,  had  been  heart- 
lessly and  unfeelingly  borrowed  from  the  beadle's  phy- 
sical infirmities.  Mr.  Toadflax  Avaddled.  Mr.  Toad- 
flax, in  his  journeyings  from  spot  to  spot,  employed  a 
method  of  progression  so  peculiar  as  to  make  some  of 
the  smaller  boys  declare  that,  if  one  of  his  legs  was 
shorter  than  the  other,  the  other  must  be  shorter  still. 
The  countenance  of  Mr.  Toadflax  was  unwholesome, 
and  his  person  odious.  And  Mr.  Toadflax  was  distin- 
guished in  the  playground  by  the  shocking  name  of 
"Game-leg." 

Mr.  Toadflax  was  a  pious  man,  turning  up  the  whites 
of  his  eyes  in  church,  responding  with  prominent  de- 
voutness,  singing  hymns  with  unctuous  fervor  consider- 
ably out  of  tune,  and  weeping  much  at  sermons.  He 
professed  great  reverence  for  his  employers  the  trustees, 
and  but  little  for  Mr.  Goggs  or  Mr.  Teasel,  whom  he 
regarded  as  fellow-servants,  on  an  equality  with  himself. 
The  trustees  encouraged  this  impression,  tending  as  it 
did  to  exalt  them  above  the  vulgar  herd  of  parsons,  and 
schoolmasters,  and  lawyers.  And  they  were  right. 
Persons  high  in  office  owe  a  deep  debt  of  gratitude  to 
the  Toadflaxes  who  humbug  them,  and  cringe  to  them, 
and  bow  down  before  them,  and  minister  to  their  im- 
portance. If  there  were  no  such  foils  to  their  dignity, 
where  would  their  dignity  be?  To  men  of  ordinary 
understanding  it  might  probably  never  have  occurred 
that  the  trustees  of  Woodruff's  Charity,  for  the  most 
part  professional  gentlemen  in  the  town,  enjoyed  any 
rank  above  those  other  professional  gentlemen  of  whose 


180  MR-   GOGGS  ACKNOWLEDGES 

offices  they  chanced  to  hold  the  patronage.  But  by  the 
aid  of  Mr.  Toadflax  the  thing  became  apparent  at  once. 
He  was  a  dependent,  and  they  were  dependents.  By 
associating  in  their  official  capacity  the  clergyman 
with  the  beadle,  and  the  beadle  with  the  lawyer,  and 
the  lawyer  with  the  assistant  beadle  who  swept  up  the 
autumn  leaves,  it  was  made  plain  enough  to  all  be- 
holders that  Messrs.  Teasel,  Toadflax,  Goggs,  and 
Duckweed  were  a  set  of  snobs  together,  and  that  the 
trustees,  their  masters,  stood  upon  a  pinnacle — a  pin- 
nacle, shall  we  say  of  greatness,  or  of  littleness  ? — but 
yet  a  pinnacle  still.  And  to  stand  on  a  pinnacle  is 
pleasant.  "They  are  a  narrow-minded  lot,"  said  the 
lawyer  to  Dr.  Stuart,  speaking  of  his  patrons.  "  Nar- 
row-minded !"  said  the  doctor.  "  You  might  pack  all 
their  minds  away  in  a  hat-box,  and  it  would  not  be 
inconveniently  full." 

Mr.  Goggs  and  Mr.  Toadflax,  however,  were  excel- 
lent friends,  being  drawn  together  by  the  closest  bond 
of  sympathy — a  common  hatred  of  the  boys.  Mr. 
Toadflax  liked  Mr.  Goggs  because  the  master  invari- 
ably took  his  part  against  his  young  tormentors,  and 
believed  all  the  exaggerated  reports  which  he  daily 
delivered,  of  their  shocking  language  and  their  mur- 
derous assaults.  Mr.  Goggs  liked  Mr.  Toadflax,  and 
took  his  part  and  believed  his  lies,  because  the  beadle, 
in  private  life  a  carpenter  and  joiner,  carpentered  and 
joined  for  Mr.  Goggs  on  easy  terms.  With  a  mis- 
chievous set  of  schoolboys  hanging  about  the  place, 
there  was  always  something  or  other  to  be  mended ; 
and,  while  Mr.  Toadflax  was  only  too  pleased  to  mend 
for  a  mere  trifle  what  he  knew  that  one  of  his  mortal 


THE  RECEIPT  OF  A    VALENTINE.  Y§Y 

foes  had  been  made  to  write  a  thousand  lines  for  break- 
ing, Mr.  Goggs  was  glad  enough  to  receive  with  favor 
the  beadle's  numerous  complaints,  in  consideration  of 
getting  his  odd  jobs  about  the  premises  executed  at  a 
nominal  charge.  So  it  is  that  in  grammar-schools  and 
academies  the  pretty  little  game  of  battledore  goes 
merrily  on,  the  boys  being  the  shuttlecocks,  and  nobody 
else  being  a  bit  the  wiser. 

"Hi,  there!"  shouted  Mr.  Toadflax,  astonished  at 
the  unwonted  sight  of  two  boys  standing  against  the 
schoolroom  wall  before  seven  o'clock  on  a  February 
morning.  The  boys  stood  against  the  wall  no  longer. 
Cramming  what  was  left  of  the  food  into  their  pockets, 
they  bolted  across  the  green,  dodged  the  beadle  behind 
a  lamp-post  towards  which  he  had  run  to  cut  them  off, 
and  tore  away  for  their  lives  along  the  empty  streets, 
Mr.  Toadflax  waddling  after  them. 

"  I  thought  old  Game-leg  couldn't  run  !"  said  Harry, 
surprised  at  the  beadle's  pace.  "But  he  won't  catch 
us,  all  the  same.  We'll  take  him  down  into  the  water 
meadows,  and  give  the  beggar  a  ditch  or  two  to 
clear." 

The  water  meadows  were  a  great  feature  in  the  coun- 
try round  Dumplington,  and  both  Willie  and  Harry 
knew  them  well.  Many  a  time,  when  paper-chasing 
on  a  Saturday  afternoon,  had  they  taken  off  their  shoes 
and  socks,  and  tucked  their  trousers  up  above  their 
knees,  and  waded  through  the  river  at  some  shallow 
spot,  or  splashed  along  the  irrigated  grass,  leaving  a 
track  of  dimples  behind  them  as  they  ran.  Many  a 
time,  in  the  attempt  to  clear  a  brook,  had  they  slipped 
on  the  wet  turf,  and  tumbled  in — sometimes  up  to  their 


1 82  MR.  GOGGS  ACKNOWLEDGES 

ankles  only — sometimes  to  their  thighs — sometimes 
even  to  their  very  waists,  but  always  scrambling  out 
undaunted  on  the  other  side,  thinking  what  a  jolly  lark 
it  was,  and  utterly  incapable  of  reflecting  that  they 
must  either  sit  in  their  comfortless  clothes  till  bedtime, 
or  confess  to  Mother  Goggs  the  full  enormity  of  their 
sin.  If  they  could  only  tempt  old  Game-leg  to  fol- 
low them,  this  present  chase  would  be  better  fun  than 
all.  And  Game-leg  was  running  like  a  man — running, 
indeed,  rather  faster  than  was  pleasant,  and  positively 
gaining  ground.  For  Harry  was  stiff  with  his  forty 
stripes  of  yesterday,  and  Willie  was  cramped  with  his 
day  and  night  in  the  cold  ;  so  that  neither  of  the  boys 
could  run  their  best,  and  Mr.  Toadflax  waddled  al- 
ready less  than  fifty  yards  behind.  The  fun  was  be- 
coming serious,  and  they  must  take  to  the  water  meadows 
without  delay. 

Here  the  boys  shot  rapidly  ahead,  for  the  beadle 
could  not  jump,  and  was  forced  to  sneak  round  by  the 
hatches.  Once  or  twice  also  he  mistook  the  way,  and 
found  himself  hemmed  in  between  two  impassable 
streams,  from  the  other  side  of  which  his  young 
friends  stood  and  laughed  at  him,  recovering  their 
wind  as  he  retraced  his  halting  steps.  At  last  a  long 
dry  field,  without  a  ditch  to  speak  of,  pumped  out  of 
the  poor  lads  what  little  breath  was  left  to  them,  and 
Mr.  Toadflax  could  be  distinctly  heard  panting  and 
groaning  in  their  rear,  as  he  "improved  his  position 
at  every  stride." 

"Now  for  a  spurt!"  said  Harry,  who  was  leading. 
"  I  know  exactly  where  we  are.  There's  a  lovely  jump 
in  the  corner  by  that  sluice.     Game-leg  couldn't  do  it 


THE  RECEIPT  OF  A    VALENTINE. 


i«3 


to  save  his  life,  and  you  and  I  have  been  over  it  heaps 
of  times.  Now  spurt  like  mad,  old  fellow,  and  we 
shall  sell  him!" 

It  was  a  lovely  jump,  indeed.  A  jump  associated 
with  the  name  of  many  a  Dumplington  boy,  who  had 
cleared  it  at  such  or  such  a  spot,  and  was  renowned 
accordingly.  A  jump  which  boys  would  walk  out  a 
couple  of  miles  to  look  at  and  measure  on  Sunday,  and 
only  wish  it  was  Monday,  that  they  might  take  a  good 
run  at  it  and  get  well  over.  A  dear  little  hurdle  fence, 
not  three  feet  high  ;  then  a  good  wide  ditch,  if  you 
took  it  at  the  left-hand  corner;  or,  if  you  bore  towards 
the  right,  a  mere  trifle  of  width,  but  some  nasty,  hard 
brickwork  to  be  cleared — emphatically  to  be  cleared, 
because  you  would  break  your  shins  if  you  fell  short  of 
it,  and  probably  break  your  neck  if  you  came  to  grief 
over  it  altogether.  Harry  and  Willie  had  leaped  it 
many  a  time,  brickwork  and  all ;  but  they  were  tired 
now,  and  worse  than  tired — wet  and  sloppy  and  uncer- 
tain of  their  spring.  The  beadle  was  scarcely  a  dozen 
yards  behind,  when  Harry  went  at  it  vigorously,  bear- 
ing towards  the  left,  cleared  the  fence,  and  plunged 
into  the  middle  of  the  stream.  Ah  !  Well  for  poor 
Willie  if  he  had  plunged  into  the  middle  too;  but  he 
made  for  the  right-hand  corner,  fearing  to  fall  upon  his 
friend,  slipped  on  the  muddy  grass,  tripped  over  the 
hurdles,  and  pitched  literally  head  first  on  the  brick- 
work beyond. 

"Oh,  Willie,  Willie!"  cried  Harry,  kneeling  down 
beside  him.      "  I'm  afraid  it's  a  case,  after  all !" 

"I've  hurt  my  head  a  bit,"  said  Willie,  in  reply, 
"  but  1  shall  be  right  again  directly.     Just  look  at  that 


t84  MR.  GOGGS  ACKNOWLEDGES 

fool  Game-leg,  fondly  imagining  that  he  can  climb 
over  the  ditch  !" 

"I  tell  you  what,  though,"  said  Harry;  "he  can 
cross  by  the  sluice,  if  he  has  the  wit  to  see  his  way. 
Could  you  get  up  a  minute,  Willie,  and  help  me  open 
the  floodgates?  Then  we  may  sit  here  and  grin  at 
him." 

"Oh,  yes,"  answered  Willie,  "I'm  well  enough." 
So  the  boys  opened  the  floodgates  just  in  time,  and 
proceeded  to  chaff  their  pursuer. 

"Come  along  now,"  said  Harry,  after  awhile. 
"We  have  stayed  here  long  enough,  and  we  must  get 
over  to  Aleworth.  By  Jove,  Willie,  your  head  must 
be  jolly  thick.  I  never  saw  a  chap  get  such  a  crack  as 
that,  and  feel  it  so  little." 

Then  Willie  began  to  talk  nonsense — simple,  foolish, 
unmeaning  nonsense — and  his  friend  grew  frightened. 
For  twenty  minutes  at  least  he  was  delirious,  and  then 
he  fell  back  on  the  turf  and  spoke  no  more.  In  the 
extremity  of  his  terror,  Harry  condescended  even  to 
call  out  for  Mr.  Toadflax ;  but  Mr.  Toadflax  had  dis- 
appeared. The  beadle  was  sneaking  round  by  a  circu- 
itous route,  and  he  soon  afterwards  waddled  up  to  the 
spot  where  the  boys  were  lying. 

"Now,  young  man,  I've  caught  you,"  said  the 
beadle,  triumphantly  seizing  Harry  by  the  shoulder. 
"You'll  just  come  along  with  me,  and  your  precious 
friend  there  with  you." 

"  Don't  you  see  that  he  can't  move?"  returned  the 
boy.  "He  is  hurt  most  awfully,  and  I  am  afraid  he 
will  "die." 

"Die!  stuff  and  nonsense!  he  is  only  shamming." 


THE   RECEIPT  OF  A    VALENTINE.  ^5 

And  here  the  beadle  left  Harry  to  himself,  and  shook 
the  wounded  boy  roughly  by  the  arm. 

"Leave  him  alone,  you  cruel  brute!"  cried  Harry, 
springing  upon  the  man  so  fiercely  that  he  retreated 
towards  the  brook,  where  one  gamedeg  got  entangled 
in  the  other,  and  the  beadle  fell  ignominiously  back- 
wards. 

"Oh,  Master  Northcote,  help,  help,  help!"  he  ex- 
claimed, as  he  floundered  about  in  the  water.  "I 
can't  swim,  and  I  shall  be  drownded  !  Help,  help, 
help!" 

"Swim,  you  great  muff!"  said  Harry,  with  con- 
tempt. "Why,  it's  only  five  feet  deep;  and  as  for 
help,  you  may  get  out  how  you  can." 

Mr.  Toadflax,  thus  reassured,  got  out  speedily,  and 
made  the  best  of  his  way  home  along  the  road  ;  being 
subject  to  rheumatics,  and  dreading  nothing  so  much 
at  any  time  as  cold  water.  Besides,  he  had  sense 
enough  to  see  that  poor  Willie  Nightshade  stood  in 
need  of  better  help  than  he  could  give  him,  or  Harry 
either;  and  his  first  visit  on  his  arrival  at  Dumpling- 
ton,  after  changing  his  wet  clothes,  was  paid  to  the 
undertaker,  who  drove  off  instantly  to  ascertain  the 
worst  about  his  boy. 

Soon  after  the  departure  of  the  beadle  Willie  re- 
vived, and  talked  more  rationally  to  his  friend.  But  his 
mind  was  ever  wandering  back  to  school  scenes,  and 
he  burst  again  and  again  into  fits  of  laughter,  at  the 
remembrance  of  tricks  which  he  had  played  old  Goggs. 

"My  head  feels  very  queer,"  said  the  boy,  after  a 
long  silence.  "  Do  you  know,  Harry,  I  believe  I  am 
going  to  die." 


186  MR.   GOGGS  ACKNOWLEDGES 

"Not  you,"  said  Harry,  trying  to  cheer  him  up. 
"Don't  talk  about  dying,  Willie,  for  goodness'  sake." 
.  "Ah,  but  I  am,  though.  It  seems  hard  to  die,  Harry, 
just  for  sending  old  Goggs  a  valentine.  But,  I  say, 
it  was  awful  fun,  wasn't  it?"  And  here  he  laughed 
unnaturally,  and  began  to  ramble. 

"  I  know  all  about  it  now,"  he  said,  when  he  came 
to  himself  again.  "I  am  really  going  to  die.  And, 
Harry,  I  want  you  to  promise  me  something.  When 
I  am  dead,  don't  let  them  put  me  into  a  coffin.  Please 
don't.     You  won't,  now,  will  you?" 

"You  are  not  going  to  die,  Willie;  and  you  are 
talking  stuff.  Of  course  we  shall  all  be  put  into  coffins, 
some  day  or  other." 

"  But  /won't.  I  won't.  I  won't.  Oh,  Harry,  dear, 
dear  Harry  !  I  thought  you  would  do  that  much  for 
me!  I  would  do  anything  for  you;  but  I  can't  do 
anything,  because  I  am  going  to  die.  Please  be  kind 
to  me.  Please  do.  Oh,  if  you  knew  how  I  hate  the 
sight  of  a  horrid  black  ugly  coffin  !  Don't  let  them 
make  one  for  me!"  And  the  poor  boy  flung  himself  on 
his  friend's  neck,  and  burst  into  tears. 

Harry  began  to  comprehend  him  now.  The  under- 
taker's son  had  seen  enough  of  coffins,  and  hearses,  and 
plumes ;  and  he  wanted  to  be  buried  like  a  Christian. 
So  Harry  promised  him  that,  when  he  was  dead,  he 
should  be  dressed  in  his  surplice,  and  placed  on  a 
simple  board,  and  carried  to  the  grave  by  his  school- 
boy friends,  and  laid  in  the  earth  as  a  boy  who  should 
one  day  rise  again,  instead  of  being  nailed  down  in  a 
hideous  box  by  drunken  workmen,  and  pushed  away  out 
of  sight,  as  if  there  were  to  be  an  end  of  him  forever. 


THE  RECEIPT  OF  A    VALENTINE.  187 

Soon  after  this,  Willie  began  to  say  scraps  of  lessons, 
and  play  football  over  again  in  his  delirium,  stopping 
short  from  time  to  time  to  laugh  at  the  reverend  school- 
master, or  imitate  Mother  Goggs  as  she  was  giving 
some  little  chap  a  jaw.  But  never  word  escaped  his 
lips  which  his  mother  or  sister  might  not  hear.  Sud- 
denly he  became  quiet  again,  and  turned  round  to 
Harry,  complaining  of  strange  noises  in  his  head,  but 
looking  as  well  as  ever.  "  They  are  all  singing  to  me, 
Harry,"  he  said.  "Can't  you  hear?  Oh,  it  sounds 
so  awfully  jolly  !  Ah — that's  the  anthem  I  like  best 
of  all.  Say  it  to  me,  Harry.  I  can't  recollect  the 
words." 

"I  don't  know  what  you  mean,  Willie — really  I 
don't.     Try  to  go  to  sleep,  that's  a  dear  old  fellow." 

"What  a  brute  that  Goggs  is!"  observed  Willie, 
rambling  again.  "  He  is  such  a  spiteful  beast.  I  don't 
believe  any  fellow  likes  a  master  a  bit  the  worse  for 
licking  him  if  he  deserves  it ;  but  everybody  hates  a  chap 
who  is  always  badgering  and  bullying,  and  won't  be- 
lieve a  word  you  say.  Mind  you  don't  eat  any  of  them, 
Harry,  if  Mother  Goggs  sends  you  out  with  strawberries. 
Ah — now  I  can  hear  the  words.  '  O  remember  not  the 
sins  and  offenses  of  my  youth' — sins  and  offenses  of  my 
youth — such  a  lot  of  them,  Harry  !  Oh,  I  am  so  sorry. 
God  forgive  a  poor,  wicked  boy  !  '  But  according  to 
thy  mercy  think  Thou  on  me — think  Thou  on  me — for 
thy  goodness.'  Such  a  lot  of  them,  Harry  !  I  wish  I 
hadn't  sent  that  thing  to  Goggs.  But  I  say,  Harry, 
what  a  jolly  lark  it  was  !" 

"  Do  you  think  old  Goggs  will  go  to  heaven?"  asked 
the  boy,  after  another  fit  of  dozing. 


1 88  MR.  GOGGS  ACKNOWLEDGES 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  suppose  so,"  replied  his  friend.  "  Cler- 
gymen always  do." 

"  Well,  I  hope  he  will.  But  do  you  think  he'll  go 
in  that  old  school-coat  ?  I  am  afraid  he  hurt  you  tre- 
mendously yesterday  morning?  What  a  brick  you 
were  not  to  sneak  of  me  !  But  I  must  say,  that  of  all 
the  stupid,  careless,  idle  dunces  that  ever  I  had  to  do 
with,  you  boys  are  the  stupidest.    Write  out  a  thousand 

lines  apiece,  and Oh,  Harry,  Harry,  hold  me  up 

a  minute  !  my  head  is  so  awfully  bad  !" 

"  Don't  try  to  talk,  Willie.  Keep  yourself  quiet. 
Somebody  will  be  sure  to  come  directly  and  fetch  us 
home." 

"  Somebody  fetch  us  home  ?  but  I  won't  be  fetched. 
I  won't  be  squeezed  into  a  nasty  trunk,  and  hammered 
down  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  as  if  I  were  going  to 
be  sent  off  by  luggage-train,  this  side  up,  with  care." 

"No,  you  sha'n't,  old  fellow;  you  sha'n't,  really. 
I'll  tell  your  dad  about  it." 

"  My  dad — ah,  how  sorry  he  will  be  !  Give  my  love 
to  him,  Harry.  I  wish  Frank  was  here.  Give  my  love 
to  him,  too  ;  and  to  Tom  Pippin,  and  dear  old  Grab. 
Don't  you  remember  how  we  used  to  laugh  at  boys 
always  dying  in  books?  and  now  it  has  come  true.  Oh, 
I  am  so  sorry  for  such  a  lot  of  things.     God  forgive  a 

poor,  wicked  boy  !  only  a  boy  !     Good-by,  Harry 

What  a  row  those  fellows  make  !  I  can  hear  them  sing- 
ing still.  '  O  remember  not  the  sins  and  offenses — of 
my  youth' — say  it  for  me,  Harry.  I  can't  think  what 
comes  next." 

Harry  said  it,  as  best  he  might,  for  he  was  half 
choked  with  sobbings  over  his  first  great  and  bitter 


THE  RECEIPT  OF  A    VALENTINE.  ^9 

grief.  But  he  said  it  to  himself  alone.  Willie  had  been 
fetched  home  indeed.  He  had  gone  on  a  longer  journey 
than  his  friend  could  ever  take  him.  He  was  safe  in 
the  keeping  of  One  who,  though  He  had  often  mourned 
over  his  schoolboy  follies,  and  sometimes  pleaded  with 
his  wayward  heart  in  vain,  had  once  for  love  towards 
children  become  a  boy  Himself,  that  He  might  know 
what  the  perils  and  temptations  of  boyhood  were. 


igo  THE  MAD  ENGLISHMAN 


CHAPTER    XII. 

THE   MAD    ENGLISHMAN    TAKES   A   PLUNGE. 

The  two  highly  sensational  reports,  that  Lady  Apple- 
tree's  baby  had  been  carried  off,  and  that  Tom  Pippin 
was  engaged  to  Lady  Maria  Bent,  burst  simultaneously 
upon  the  ancient  city  of  Dumplington.  Simultane- 
ously ;  for  indeed  they  could  hardly  have  burst  other- 
wise. Had  the  one  report  exploded  before  the  other, 
the  other  would  never  have  exploded  at  all.  If  his 
little  cousin  were  smothered  or  drowned,  Tom  had  no 
need  to  marry  the  cripple.  If  Tom  married  the  cripple, 
his  little  cousin  had  no  need  to  be  smothered  or 
drowned.  And,  in  that  the  events  had  happened  sim- 
ultaneously, Tom  felt  himself  to  be  an  ill-used  man. 
The  perpetrator  of  the  deed  of  darkness,  whoever  he 
was,  might  surely  have  either  perpetrated  it  somewhat 
earlier  in  the  week,  or  at  least  have  given  Tom  just  a 
slight  suspicion  of  the  nature  of  his  designs.  Tom 
would  have  scouted  as  a  thing  poisonous  and  horrible 
the  bare  thought  of  even  winking  at  such  a  crime ;  and 
yet  it  would  have  been  convenient  upon  the  whole  to 
postpone  the  gushings  of  his  love  for  Lady  Maria,  and 
to  refrain  from  recalling  his  sweet  reminiscences  of  her 
infancy,  until  he  knew  for  certain  that  there  was  no 
possible  way  of  escape  from  his  troubles  but  the  way  of 


TAKES  A   PLUNGE. 


I9l 


her  golden  charms.  It  is  more  than  probable  that  Mr. 
Burdock,  as  he  listened  to  the  pattering  of  busy  feet 
upon  the  pavement,  and  heard  the  swinging  to  and  fro 
of  chop-house  doors,  from  his  office  stool  at  No.  5  Cat's 
Alley,  Cornhill,  may  also,  regarding  the  matter  from 
his  point  of  view,  have  felt  himself  to  be  an  ill-used 
man ;  inasmuch  as  Tom  Pippin,  if  he  had  only  been 
civil  enough  to  revive  his  impressions  of  Lady  Maria's 
childhood  three  days  before,  would  have  saved  the 
money-lender  from  the  necessity  of  cultivating  the  very 
undesirable  acquaintance  of  Mr.  Cuffs  the  policeman. 

Nevertheless,  now  that  he  had  done  it,  Tom  was  man 
enough  to  stick  to  it.  He  had  no  idea  of  shilly-shally- 
ing about,  making  a  fool  first  of  one  woman  and  then 
of  another.  He  had  chosen  his  line,  and  it  was  not 
such  a  bad  line  after  all.  Everybody  told  him  that  he 
had  done  the  right  thing.  One  fault  only  had  ever 
been  charged  upon  Tom — the  black,  deadly  sin  of 
poverty ;  and  now,  with  estates  of  unknown  wealth  in 
all  three  kingdoms,  Tom  would  stand  faultless  in  the 
sight  of  his  fellow-men.  The  duke  was  delighted,  the 
earl  was  charmed,  the  young  lady  was  radiant  with  gig- 
glings in  anticipation  of  matrimonial  bliss.  Tom  Pip- 
pin was  at  least  contented  ;  and  who  besides  had  any 
business  to  interfere  ?  There  was  Edith,  to  be  sure  ; 
but  Tom  did  not  allow  himself  to  think  very  much 
about  Edith  just  now,  though  he  could  not  doubt  that 
she  would  admit,  on  calm  reflection,  the  wisdom  of  his 
ultimate  choice. 

Christmas  Day  arrived  ;  and  the  amateur  detective, 
aided  by  his  'cute  wife,  had  been  fishing  and  finding  at 
Lord  Appletree's  expense  for  the  last  five  weeks,  but 


192 


THE  MAD  ENGLISHMAN 


had  fished  and  found  nothing  as  yet,  except  the  tanta- 
lizing fact  that  the  perpetrator  was  always  just  in  front 
of  him,  that  he  was  always  just  going  to  catch  him,  and 
that  he  always  just  contrived  to  get  away.  Captain 
Northcote,  who  had  his  own  ideas  about  Mr.  Cuffs, 
rode  over  once  or  twice  to  Withycombe  and  imparted 
them  to  the  earl. 

"I  can't  think,"  he  said,  "why  you  allow  yourself 
to  be  humbugged  by  that  fellow.  He  has  got  your 
child  safe  enough ;  and  he'll  keep  him,  so  long  as  you 
make  it  worth  his  while." 

"  My  dear  friend,"  replied  the  earl,  "it  isn't  a  bit 
of  use  to  talk.  I'll  never  believe  a  word  against  Cuffs. 
Besides,  what  could  possibly  be  his  motive?" 

"Ah,"  said  the  captain  ;  "  there  you  beat  me.  The 
motives  of  gentlemen  like  Mr.  Cuffs  are  not  so  easy  to 
fathom.  But  look  here,  Lord  Appletree.  Will  you 
give  me  leave  to  go  in  search,  quite  on  my  own  ac- 
count, and  try  my  hand  at  fishing  and  finding?  I  won't 
compromise  you  in  any  way  whatever  ;  and  by  this  day 
week  I'll  bring  the  baby  back  again." 

The  earl,  however,  would  not  hear  of  it.  He  placed 
unlimited  confidence  in  Mr.  Cuffs,  and  almost  un- 
limited funds  at  Mr.  Cuffs's  disposal.  He  shrank  with 
horror  from  the  publicity  which  Captain  Northcote,  by 
some  fiery  act  of  vengeance  on  an  imaginary  perpetrator, 
would  bring  upon  his  domestic  trouble ;  and  he  wished 
to  draw  down  neither  the  world's  pity  nor  the  world's 
ridicule  upon  himself  or  his  countess-cook. 

On  New  Year's  Day  the  worst  of  it  was  told.  A  letter 
came  from  Mr.  Cuffs,  saying  that  the  child  was  dead. 
He  had  tracked  Mr.  Burdock  as  far  as  Basle,  and  the 


TAKES  A   PLUNGE.  193 

two  men  had  slept  almost  in  adjacent  rooms.  But  the 
money-lender,  before  retiring  to  rest,  had  "stood  on 
the  bridge  at  midnight,"  had  dropped  the  infant  into 
the  rapid  stream,  had  breakfasted  half  an  hour  before 
the  policeman,  and  vanished  —  Heaven  only  knew 
whither.  The  deed  had  been  witnessed,  and  the  fact 
was  beyond  dispute ;  and  there  was  nothing  left  for 
the  countess  and  the  earl  but  to  go  mourning  for  their 
child. 

One  thing  besides  was  left — the  least  little  dawning 
suspicion  that  Mr.  Cuffs  was  not  quite  true.  Suspicion, 
in  such  a  matter,  Avas  ground  for  immediate  action. 
The  earl  and  the  captain  started  off  together,  attended 
by  a  couple  of  detectives  from  London  ;  followed  the 
policeman  step  by  step  till  they  came  to  Basle,  and 
then  missed  him  suddenly;  gathered  intelligence 
enough  of  the  crime  on  the  bridge  at  midnight  to 
justify  a  belief  that  the  baby  had  actually  been  thrown 
into  the  Rhine;  offered  rewards  for  the  apprehension 
of  Cuffs,  and  heard  no  more  about  him;  and  finally 
returned  to  England,  in  the  full  conviction  that  the 
little  viscount  was  a  viscount  no  more. 

And  so  in  course  of  time  the  happy  day  was  fixed, 
and  drew  near,  and  dawned,  which  was  to  unite  the 
handsomest  man  in  Dumplingshire  with  the  ugliest 
woman  in  the  world.  May  was  the  happy  month ; 
and  the  happy  scene  of  the  interesting  ceremony  was 
the  parish  church  of  Crookleigh  St.  Andrew,  where 
dukes  for  generations  past  had  pillowed  their  ducal 
heads  on  the  cushions  of  the  ducal  family  pew.  It  was 
a  truly  ducal  sight,  and  the  whole  county  was  there  to 
see.    The  rich  old  man  who  married  his  cook  to  please 

13 


194 


THE  MAD  ENGLISHMAN 


himself  had  smuggled  the  lady  up  to  London  in  the 
dark,  and  wedded  her  at  some  dingy,  unfrequented 
church,  in  the  presence  of  his  flunky,  his  cook's  wait- 
ing-woman, and  the  sexton.  The  good-looking  young 
rake,  who  was  going  to  marry  a  dwarf  to  please  his 
creditors,  had  scarcely  room  enough  to  make  his  way 
to  the  altar,  between  the  ranks  of  smiling  daughters 
and  well-born  dames  who  kissed  their  congratulations 
towards  him,  and  showered  the  customary  and  highly- 
esteemed  blessings  on  his  path.  A  man  may  not  marry 
his  grandmother,  or  his  cook.  The  one  would  be  old- 
fashioned,  and  unpleasantly  precise ;  the  other  would 
clip  her  H's,  and  very  possibly  bite  her  nails.  But  a 
man  may  marry  an  idiot  or  a  dwarf,  if  only  he  will 
shut  the  creature  up  out  of  society's  way,  and  spend 
her  money  freely  on  the  darlings  who  ride  with  him, 
and  dance  with  him,  and  dote  upon  him  because  he  is 
such  a  dear  duck  of  a  fellow,  and  treats  his  misbegotten 
incubus  of  a  wife  so  well.  Lady  Maria  need  scarcely 
have  distressed  herself  with  the  apprehension  that  her 
marriage  with  Tom  Pippin  would  bring  him  into  con- 
tempt with  all  the  world. 

And  so  the  happy  day  dawned,  and  shed  its  early 
streaks  of  light,  and  blazed  in  the  full  splendor  of 
approaching  noon  ;  and  Tom  Pippin's  best  man  led 
him  up  to  execution  in  the  sight  of  the  enraptured 
crowd.  The  bridegroom's  face  was  deadly  pale,  and 
his  brow  wore  a  look  of  intolerable  anxiety,  as  if  the 
cares  of  the  estates  in  all  three  kingdoms  were  already 
beginning  to  weigh  him  down.  At  every  step,  as  he 
advanced  towards  the  spot  where  his  blooming  bride 
awaited  him,  did  the  burden  of  anticipated  wealth  seem 


TAKES  A   PLUNGE. 


195 


harder  to  bear ;  and  when  at  last  he  stood  beside  her, 
and  the  bishop's  chaplain  began  to  read  his  office,  poor 
Tom  gazed  up  into  the  minister's  face  with  a  look  of 
such  hopeless  misery,  that  the  minister  stopped  in  the 
middle  of  his  exhortation,  and  beckoned  to  the  clerk, 
and  bade  him  open  the  chancel  door  to  let  in  the  cool 
spring  breezes,  and  fetch  a  glass  of  cold  water  from  the 
vestry,  in  case  the  gentleman  should  faint  away.  But 
the  gentleman  stood  horribly  erect,  like  a  corpse  in 
wedding-garments  set  on  end  ;  waxing  paler  and  paler 
as  the  time  for  joining  hands  drew  near ;  the  very 
Statue  of  Desperation,  the  Monument  of  The  Man 
who  might  never  hope  again.  For  Tom  had  dined 
out  the  night  before  in  Dumplington,  and  Edith  had 
sat  at  table  with  him ;  and  Tom  had  taken  her  hand 
and  pressed  it,  and  tried  to  excuse  to  her  his  villainy; 
and  she  had  turned  from  him  gently,  with  her  old 
bright,  sunny  smile,  and  muttered  with  broken  voice, 
in  the  dear  old  tones  that  might,  if  he  would,  have 
welcomed  him  home  forever,  a  wish  that  he  might  be 
always  happy,  and  an  assurance  that  she  herself  had 
nothing  to  forgive.  And  Tom  had  thought  only  of 
Edith,  and  Edith's  voice,  and  Edith's  touch,  and 
Edith's  smile,  and  Edith's  love  which  he  had  lost, 
from  that  time  to  this.  All  night  and  all  the  morning 
he  had  cursed  himself,  slumbering  and  waking,  tossing 
his  head  on  the  pillow  from  side  to  side,  or  pacing  his 
licilroom  carpet  to  and  fro;  now  forgetting  for  awhile 
his  wretchedness,  and  then  starting  up  with  a  cry  of 
anguish,  as  he  remembered  it  again  ;  but  always  cursing 
himself,  and  himself  alone,  for  the  curses  stored  up 
against  him  by  his  own  stupendous  folly.     Within  a 


196  THE  MAD   ENGLISHMAN 

very  little  was  Tom  of  doing  what  many  a  man  has 
done  with  less  excuse,  as  he  felt  the  edge  of  his  razors 
one  by  one,  and  sat  before  the  looking-glass  trying  to 
make  up  his  mind,  and  wondering  whether  it  hurt,  and 
what  would  happen  afterwards,  and  how  the  world  would 
take  it,  and  whereabouts  it  was  best  to  begin. 

He  was  wishing  he  had  done  it,  and  swearing 
to  himself  that  he  would  not  miss  another  chance, 
when  the  Bishop  of  Dumplington  stepped  forward 
from  the  ecclesiastical  easy-chair  in  which  the  Vicar 
of  Crookleigh  St.  Andrew  had  decently  enthroned 
him,  and  demanded  of  the  bridegroom  the  customary 
declaration. 

"  Wilt  thou  have  this  woman  to  thy  wedded  wife  ?" 
began  the  bishop,  reading  the  paragraph  with  wonted 
episcopal  impressiveness  to  the  end.  But  Tom  Pippin 
made  no  answer,  and  gave  no  sign. 

The  bishop  thought  Tom  a  very  extraordinary  young 
man,  and  signified  to  his  chaplain  a  desire  that  the 
bridegroom  should  be  prompted  to  the  performance  of 
the  duties  required  of  him.  The  chaplain  whispered 
to  Tom,  and  Tom  stared  vacantly  at  the  chaplain,  but 
his  lips  never  so  much  as  moved.  The  chaplain  fetched 
his  book,  and  pointed  to  the  response  which  Tom  was 
expected  to  make,  but  all  in  vain.  At  last  the  bishop, 
with  some  little  asperity  of  manner,  read  the  question 
over  again,  coming  close  to  the  interesting  couple  as 
they  stood  together,  and  impatiently  awaiting  a  reply. 

"Don't  you  understand?"  asked  his  lordship,  an- 
grily, thinking  that  Tom  was  making  a  fool  of  him. 
"You  have  got  to  answer,  you  know." 

"Aw,"  said  Tom,  at  last;  "aw — beg  your  pardon, 


TAKES  A   PLUNGE. 


197 


but — aw — didn't  quite  catch — aw — would  you  mind  aw 
saying  it  again?" 

The  bishop,  who  had  a  great  regard  for  dukes  in 
general,  and  the  Duke  of  Dumplingshire  in  particular, 
vouchsafed  to  read  his  question  for  the  third  time  ;  but 
Tom  had  no  answer  ready.  "  The  man  must  be  mad," 
thought  the  bishop,  retiring  in  great  wrath  to  his  eccle- 
siastical easy-chair. 

"You  had  better  try  him  once  more,"  whispered  his 
lordship  to  the  chaplain,  "  and  tell  him  that,  if  he  does 
not  speak  next  time,  I  shall  stop  the  service.  I  have 
no  notion  of  being  played  with  like  this." 

"  Wilt  thou  have  this  woman  to  thy  wedded  wife?" 
began  the  chaplain.  "Now,  mind,"  he  continued,  in 
a  lower  tone;  "when  I  come  to  the  end,  you  must 
say,  'I  will.'     Do  you  understand?" 

"Aw — I  was  just  aw  thinking  whether  I  would," 
muttered  Tom.  "  By  Jove,  you  know,  she's  so  short, 
you  know,  and  aw — would  }ou  mind  aw  saying  it 
again?"  And  here,  for  the  first  time  since  he  had 
entered  the  church,  the  bridegroom  turned  half  round 
and  looked  into  the  face  of  his  blushing  bride.  She 
herselt  had  evinced  no  sort  of  interest  in  the  moment- 
ous question  three  times  repeated  by  the  bishop,  or 
shown  surprise  at  Tom's  eccentric  method  of  dealing 
with  it.  Her  features  wore  their  habitual  grin  of 
idiotcy,  as  she  rocked  her  comely  person  from  side  to 
side ;  and  the  bishop  wat<  hing  her  movements  wondered 
within  himself,  if  Tom  were  so  troublesome  to  manage, 
what  on  earth  lie  should  do  to  preserve  Ids  dignity  be- 
fore the  congregation  when  he  came  to  Lady  Maria. 
Now  for  the  first  time  Tom  looked  into  her  face,  and 


198  THE  MAD  ENGLISHMAN 

then  recollected  all  about  another  face ;  and  then  it 
was  all  over  with  Tom. 

"Wilt  thou  have  this  woman  to  thy  wedded  wife?" 
asked  the  chaplain,  yet  once  again. 

"No,  I'm  blest  if  I  will!"  said  Tom,  unmindful 
alike  of  the  sanctity  of  the  place,  the  high  office  of 
the  bishop,  and  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion.  "You 
see,  old  fellow,  it's  aw  impossible.     She  is  so  awfully — 

aw' ' And  here,  the  cool  spring  breezes  as  they  rustled 

through  the  chancel  door  suggesting  a  way  of  escape, 
Tom  picked  up  his  hat  from  the  pavement,  bolted  into 
the  churchyard,  ran  for  his  life  to  the  village  public- 
house,  in  front  of  which  a  groom  was  leading  a  horse 
up  and  down,  seized  the  bridle  from  the  servant's 
hand,  sprang  on  the  creature's  back,  and  rode  at  full 
gallop  to  the  station  at  Dumplington,  where  he  arrived, 
by  a  wonderful  piece  of  luck,  just  in  time  to  catch  the 
London  train. 

Such  a  scene  the  walls  of  church  or  chapel  had  never 
witnessed  yet,  since  church  or  chapel  first  began  to  be. 
Some  slight  sensation  of  smothered  merriment  had 
been  apparent  among  the  dowagers  and  darlings  in  the 
nave  when  Tom  first  refused  to  speak ;  but  his  hesita- 
tion was  for  the  most  part  assigned  to  nervousness,  and 
nobody  supposed  for  one  moment  that  he  meant  to 
shirk  his  engagements.  But  when  they  beheld  him 
darting  through  the  chancel  door  the  entire  congrega- 
tion appeared  to  forget,  almost  as  effectually  as  Tom 
had  forgotten,  that  they  stood  on  holy  ground. 

"Stop  him  !"  cried  the  earl,  calling  out  to  a  group 
of  servants  who  were  looking  on  from  the  belfry  tower. 
"  Stop  him  !  he's  as  mad  as  a  hatter  !" 


TAKES  A   PLUNGE.  i99 

"Mad!"  muttered  the  duke,  hurrying  out  of  his 
pew.  "  If  I  catch  the  vagabond,  I'll  drag  him  back 
and  horsewhip  him  !" 

"Oh — oh — oh  !"  shrieked  the  dowagers. 

"Ew — ew — ew!"  simpered  the  darlings. 

"By  Jove — aw — what  a  vewy  odd  fell-aw!"  said  a 
chorus  of  British  aristocrats,  screwing  glasses  into  their 
eyes. 

"Gentleman  changed  his  mind,  it  seems,"  said  one 
flunky  to  another  flunky,  grinning  under  the  belfry 
tower. 

"  Sh sh!"  said  the  bishop,  whose  presence  of 

mind  had  fairly  deserted  him  at  the  first  shock  of  Tom's 

unprecedented  flight.     "  Sh sh  !     Remember,  good 

people,  that  you  are  in  church.  Kneel  down  in  your 
respective  places,  that  I  may  give  you  my  blessing." 

The  good  people  did  not  kneel,  because  kneeling  is 
vulgar,  and  they  were  nobly  born,  or,  if  not  nobly 
born,  were  distantly  connected  with  those  who  were 
nobly  born,  or,  if  not  in  any  way  connected,  had 
shaken  hands  or  dined  with  those  who  were  nobly 
born,  or,  if  they  had  never  dined,  had  dined  at  least 
with  the  friends  of  persons  who  had  shaken  hands  with 
those  who  were  nobly  born.  So  they  did  not  kneel, 
bill  they  expanded  their  draperies  into  small  balloons, 
and  squatted,  in  a  position  not  only  extremely  elegant 
but  indicative  both  of  gentle  birth  and  good  breeding. 
If  they  could  but  have  been  photographed  as  they 
appeared  while  undergoing  the  episcopal  benediction, 
and  their  likenesses  could  have  been  transferred  to 
the  pages  of  the  Illustrated  London  News,  all  England 
would  have  wondered,  first,  how  the  poor  creatures 


200  THE  MAD  ENGLISHMAN 

got  themselves  into  such  a  remarkable  attitude,  and 
secondly,  how  they  ever  contrived  to  get  themselves 
out  of  it. 

So  the  good  people  were  dismissed,  and  hastened 
into  the  churchyard,  where  they  wandered  unquietly 
among  the  tombs,  standing,  unmindful  of  the  dead, 
on  grassy  mounds,  or  climbing  on  to  slabs  of  granite, 
in  the  hope  that  they  might  catch  a  glimpse  or  two  in 
the  distance  of  the  knight  who  had  loved  and  ridden 
away.  Half  a  dozen  men  on  horseback  started  in 
pursuit,  charged  by  the  duke  to  bring  the  knight  back 
to  his  castle,  alive  or  dead.  But  the  knight  was  too 
many  for  them.  The  village  clock  proclaimed  the 
canonical  hour  of  twelve.  The  dowagers  sailed  into 
their  carriages  ;  the  darlings  grouped  themselves  grace- 
fully in  their  seats ;  the  British  aristocrat  ordered  out 
his  drag ;  the  bishop  resigned  the  ecclesiastical  easy- 
chair  and  walked  into  the  parson's  study  to  disrobe ; 
the  bridegroom's  best  man  looked  supremely  foolish 
and  made  believe  to  recover  his  self-possession  by 
lighting  a  cigar;  and  the  bridesmaids  bustled  their 
queen  into  the  vestry  and  locked  the  door,  in  antici- 
pation of  the  inevitable  fainting-fit,  which,  contrary 
to  all  established  precedents,  stubbornly  declined  to 
ensue. 

"Bless  your  souls,  my  dears,  I'm  all  right,"  said 
Lady  Maria.  "Don't  you  alarm  yourselves,  by  any 
means.  I  knew  it  would  never  come  off.  There, 
don't  you  go  untying  my  strings  !  Let's  get  along 
home.  I  want  some  luncheon.  Oh,  no,  I  forgot. 
It's  breakfast  that  people  have  for  an  early  dinner  the 
day  they  are  married.     Lady  Betty  Blackthorn,  I'll 


TAKES  A   PLUNGE.  20 1 

just  trouble  you  to  leave  my  hooks  and  eyes  alone. 
If  I  am  a  dwarf,  that's  no  reason  why  I  should  be 
undressed  before  company!" 

"Well,  but,  dear,"  said  a  chorus  of  sweet  crea- 
tures, "  consider  the  situation, — how  very  distressing 
it  is!" 

"  Distressing  !  not  a  bit  of  it !  I  knew  very  well  I 
was  too  ugly  for  him.  Oh,  Tom,  Tom  !  why  didn't 
you  come  and  marry  me  in  my  infancy?" 

Between  the  intervals  of  his  varied  benedictions  on 
the  bridegroom,  the  Duke  of  Dumplingshire  was  hos- 
pitably endeavoring  to  persuade  his  wedding  guests  to 
stay  and  eat  his  daughter's  wedding  breakfast,  wedding 
or  no.  Of  course  it  was  out  of  the  question  that  any 
such  invitations  should  be  accepted.  "Bishop,"  said 
the  duke,  as  the  episcopal  carriage  came  round,  "you'll 
take  a  bit  of  luncheon  before  you  go?" 

"No,  thank  you,  duke,"  replied  the  bishop,  highly 
indignant  at  being  trotted  out  for  nothing.  "  Straight 
home,"  said  his  lordship  to  the  footman;  and,  as  the 
episcopal  horses  whirled  him  away,  he  muttered  to 
himself  yet  other  little  words,  which  neither  footman 
nor  duke  might  hear. 

The  Great  Western  Express  brought  Tom  to  Pad- 
dington  at  six  o'clock,  and  a  cab  soon  afterwards  set 
him  down  at  the  door  of  his  uncle's  bachelor  establish- 
ment in  Bolton  Street,  May-Fair.  Here  he  dined  off 
a  hastily-prepared  beefsteak,  not  caring  to  encounter 
the  publicity  of  his  club;  and,  having  filled  a  small 
portmanteau  with  clothes  and  other  necessaries,  of 
which  he  was  accustomed  to  keep  a  supply  in  town,  he 
caught  the  evening  train  from  London  Bridge,  crossed 


202  THE   MAD  ENGLISHMAN 

the  Channel  at  midnight,  and  breakfasted  at  Brussels 
in  the  morning.  "  There  is  only  one  chance  for  me," 
said  Tom  to  himself,  as  he  counted  out  his  money  at 
the  hotel.  "  I  must  cut  away  to  Switzerland,  and  walk 
it  off.  Here's  ten,  fifteen,  twenty,  twenty-five  Napo- 
leons. By  Jove,  that  won't  go  far."  It  was  all,  how- 
ever, that  Tom  could  reckon  up.  The  duke  had  taken 
a  check  with  him  to  church,  to  be  sensationally  pressed 
into  his  son-in-law's  hand  when  the  wedding  was  over. 
But  his  son-in-law  would  not  wait  to  earn  his  money. 
Tom  still  owed  fifty  thousand  pounds ;  and  now,  with 
his  matrimonial  projects  abandoned,  unless  he  could 
sell  Ribstone  Court,  he  had  no  means  of  raising  fifty 
thousand  farthings. 

Tom  had  never  been  to  Switzerland  before.  He 
could  not  tear  himself  away  from  the  attractions  of  an 
English  summer.  Cricket,  rowing,  archery,  fishing — 
these  were  his  amusements,  and  they  had  always  kept 
him  at  home.  He  was  glad,  therefore,  to  glean  a  hint 
or  two,  at  the  table-d'hote,  from  an  American  gentleman 
who  appeared  to  have  "done"  everything  in  all  the 
corners  of  the  earth,  and  something  to  spare. 

From  this  most  entertaining  individual  Tom  learned 
that  it  was  now  full  early  for  Alpine  work,  and  that  he 
had  better  take  the  Rhine  leisurely  on  his  way.  Tom 
started,  therefore,  on  the  morrow  for  Cologne,  whence 
he  made  his  way  quietly  down  to  Heidelberg  and 
Baden-Baden  ;  where,  with  his  usual  luck,  he  staked  a 
few  Napoleons  for  fun,  and  won  upwards  of  a  hundred 
pounds. 

This  was  on  the  ist  of  June;  and  Tom,  overjoyed  at 
his  accession  of  wealth,  went  down  to  Lucerne,  and 


TAKES  A   PLUNGE.  203 

"did"  what  everybody  else  has  done,  until  he  knew 
the  diligence  roads  and  horse-paths  of  the  Oberland 
moderately  well.  Then  he  fell  in  with  a  party  of 
friends  from  England,  who  laughed  at  him  for  lingering 
in  scenery  so  "  tame,"  and  carried  him  off  to  Zermatt, 
where  they  promised  to  show  him,  on  the  snow-fields 
of  Monte  Rosa  and  the  Matterhorn,  what  Switzerland 
really  was.  These  gentlemen  rejoiced  in  ice-axes  in- 
stead of  alpenstocks  ;  prided  themselves  on  a  decided 
preference  for  populous  beds  and  nasty  food  ;  thought 
it  fine  on  all  occasions  to  pretend  that  they  liked  to 
"rough  it;"  and  wrote  long-winded  accounts  of  their 
mild  adventures  in  the  visitors'  book,  making  many 
mistakes  in  spelling,  and  adding  to  their  signatures  the 
coveted  symbol  A.  C. 

"Rough  it!"  said  Tom,  when  his  friends  chaffed 
him  at  the  inn  on  the  Riffel  for  grumbling  at  a  mutton- 
cutlet  of  which  no  sheep  on  this  earth  could  ever  have 
been  guilty  ;  "rough  it !  it  is  not  a  question  of  rough- 
ing it !  We  have  not  discovered  a  country,  or  been 
shipwrecked  among  a  set  of  savages.  If  we  had,  I 
would  back  myself  to  '  rough  it'  as  good-humoredly  as 
the  best  of  you.  This  is  a  place  where  hundreds  of 
Englishmen  spend  hundreds  of  pounds  every  year. 
Why  in  the  name  of  common  sense  should  a  man  be 
forced  to  eat  filth,  and  lie  awake  all  night,  when  he  is 
working  like  a  horse,  and  wants  better  food  and  sounder 
sleep  than  usual?  It's  all  affectation  and  humbug. 
There  is  no  particular  merit  in  choosing  to  put  up  with 
dirt,  when  you  might  easily  be  served  with  what  is 
wholesome  and  clean  ;  and,  as  for  the  supposed  manli- 
ness of  the  idea,  it  just  happens  to  be  an  invention  of 


204  THE  MAD   ENGLISHMAN 

the  women.  Your  young-lady-tourist  won't  believe 
that  she  has  been  out  of  England  if  she  does  not  go 
home  poisoned  and  bitten  to  death ;  and  these  rascally- 
innkeepers,  knowing  her  weakness,  have  the  wit  to  take 
good  care  that  it  is  thoroughly  well  gratified." 

The  perilous  exploits  which  his  friends  recounted  at 
dinner,  or  recorded  in  the  hotel-books,  entertained 
Tom  Pippin  exceedingly.  It  appeared  that,  with  the 
assistance  of  Christian  Anderegg,  Franz  Taugwald, 
Ulrich  Aimer,  Jacob  Michel,  and  seven  or  eight  por- 
ters, these  adventurous  Englishmen,  three  in  number, 
had  been  over  all  the  passes  in  the  district,  and  climbed 
every  peak  of  any  consequence,  from  the  Weisshorn 
downwards.  Think  of  their  bravery  !  And  they  were 
not  only  brave,  but  scientific  also.  Wherever  they 
went  they  took  observations,  and  left  thermometers, 
describing  in  the  aforesaid  visitors'  book  the  spot  on 
which  the  instrument  would  be  found.  Tom  was  much 
impressed  with  their  deeds  of  daring,  and  requested  to 
be  informed  whether  it  were  possible  for  a  humble  in- 
dividual like  himself  ever  to  become  a-  member  of  the 
A.  C. 

"  You  must  go  up  a  certain  height,  you  know,"  said 
one  of  his  friends,  "  and  do  three  or  four  swell  things 
out  here;  and  then  we  could  put  down  your  name." 

"But  I  must  do  the  swell  things  by  myself ,  I  sup- 
pose?" rejoined  Tom.  "I  must  not  have  a  lot  of 
guides  to  help  me?" 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  may — as  many  as  you  like.  Only  it 
comes  rather  expensive,  you  see,  when  you  have  more 
than  three  to  each  man." 

"  Then  I  don't  think  much  of  your  exploits,"  said 


TAKES  A    PLUNGE. 


205 


Tom.  "If  a  fellow,  or  two  fellows,  or,  if  you  please, 
for  safety's  sake,  half  a  dozen  fellows  tied  together,  can 
get  over  a  glacier,  and  up  to  the  top  of  a  snow  moun- 
tain, all  honor  to  the  chap  that  gets  up  the  freshest. 
But  if  they  are  to  have  a  couple  of  natives  apiece  to 
show  them  the  way,  and  cut  steps  for  them  in  the  ice, 
and  haul  them  up  with  ropes,  then  for  the  life  of  me  I 
can't  see  what  they  have  done  to  make  such  a  mortal 
fuss  about."  And  Tom,  wishing  to  be  in  the  fashion, 
and  anxious  to  contribute  something  towards  the  embel- 
lishment of  the  visitors'  book  at  Macugnaga,  inscribed 
therein  the  following  lines: — 

A  gallant  young  "Alpine"  ascended  a  slope, 
His  body  bound  round  with  a  furlong  of  rope ; 

And  guides  half  a  score 

Behind  and  before : 
"  Hurrah  !"  he  exclaimed  ;  "  why,  Tve  done  the  Weiss  Thor !" 

His  small  brother  Fred,  when  he  heard  of  the  feat, 
Scrambled  up  through  his  window,  tied  on  to  a  sheet. 

"  Oh,"  cried  he,  "  mamma  dear! 

Do  just  come  and  look  here ! 
I  can  climb  up  a  wall — I'm  a  Swiss  mountaineer!" 

The  moral  comes  home,  gallant  "Alpine,"  to  you: 
If  you  must  brag  at  all,  brag  of  what  you  can  do. 

O'er  these  heights  so  appalling, 

Any  child  might  go  crawling, 
With  guides  by  the  dozen  to  save  him  from  falling. 

At  Macugnaga,  Tom  parted  company  with  his  en- 
terprising friends,  and  went  down  to  Baveno,  to  get  a 
decent  dinner.  A  catastrophe  had  just  come  to  pass  at 
Baveno.  A  gentleman,  living  at  a  pension  close  by, 
had  hired  a  boat  that  afternoon,  and  gone  for  a  row 


206  THE  MAD  ENGLISHMAN 

on  the  lake.  The  water  looked  very  tempting,  and  the 
gentleman  thought  he  should  like  to  bathe.  He  pulled 
off  his  coat  and  waistcoat ;  and  the  Italian,  who  was 
wielding  two  enormous  oars  at  the  extreme  end  of  the 
bows,  stopped  rowing,  and  stared.  The  gentleman 
smiled  at  his  look  of  consternation ;  took  off  the  rest 
of  his  garments  one  by  one  ;  rolled  them  up  in  a  bundle 
under  the  seat,  that  he  might  protect,  as  far  as  possible, 
his  watch  and  purse  ;  stood,  destitute  of  clothing,  on  the 
gunwale  of  the  boat ;  and  swung  his  arms  round  and 
round,  while  he  made  up  his  mind  about  plunging  in. 
At  each  step  in  the  process  of  unrobing,  the  youth  in  the 
bows  had  manifested  ever-increasing  signs  of  terror. 
So  wild  a  supposition  never  entered  into  his  head,  that 
any  man  in  his  rightful  senses  could  undress  in  a  boat, 
and  shamelessly  expose  his  naked  body  to  the  blushing 
gaze  of  an  Italian  sky.  As  for  bathing,  the  lad  had 
never  heard  of  the  lake  being  applied  to  such  a  purpose 
in  his  life;  and,  if  he  had,  he  would  not  have  be- 
lieved it  possible  that  any  one  short  of  a  maniac  would 
choose  to  bathe  in  water  a  thousand  feet  deep,  when  he 
might  paddle  up  to  his  waist  on  the  muddy  bank  in 
comparative  safety.  No,  it  was  all  plain  enough.  The 
man  had  hired  his  boat  with  the  deliberate  intention 
of  committing  suicide;  and  he,  the  unoffending  boat- 
man, would  have  to  answer  to  the  authorities  for  con- 
nivance at  the  crime.  With  a  scream  of  horror  he 
sprang  forward  from  his  seat,  just  in  time  to  see  the 
Englishman,  whose  balance  had  been  effectually  upset 
by  the  Italian's  movements,  fall — certainly  not  head 
first — into  the  clear  blue  water. 

The  Englishman  was  a  moderately  strong  swimmer, 


TAKES  A   PLUNGE.  207 

and,  being. cheated  out  of  his  header,  determined  to 
enjoy  in  its  stead  the  luxury  of  a  good  long  dive.  The 
Italian  watched  and  watched,  but  the  body  of  the 
wretched  maniac  did  not  come  up  again.  Alas  !  it 
never  would  come  up  again  !  and  he — what  should  he 
do?  At  any  rate,  he  would  act  the  part  of  innocence, 
and  lose  no  time  in  raising  the  alarm.  He  seized  his 
oars,  therefore,  and  rowed  hastily  back  in  the  direction 
of  the  nearest  island  ;  where  he  gave  information  that 
a  mad  Englishman  from  Baveno  had  hired  his  boat, 
had  stripped  himself  to  the  skin  before  his  very  eyes, 
had  flung  his  body  into  the  lake,  and  had  sunk  to  the 
bottom  like  a  stone. 

When  the  mad  Englishman  rose  to  the  surface  from 
his  dive,  he  swam  a  couple  of  hundred  yards  or  so 
without  looking  round.  Then,  turning  on  his  bark, 
and  seeing  the  Italian  pulling  like  a  demon  towards  the 
island,  he  guessed  his  purpose,  and  laughed  at  his  sim- 
plicity. Half  a  mile  or  more  was  no  very  wonderful 
distance  to  swim,  in  such  lovely  water  too;  and,  so 
long  as  the  fellow  did  not  steal  his  money,  the  joke  was 
enjoyable  enough.  But  even  in  the  lovely  water  of 
Lago  Maggiore  a  swimmer  may  be  seized  with  cramp  5 
and  the  mad  Englishman,  trying  in  vain  to  rub  down 
into  their  places  the  knotted  muscles  of  his  calf,  spun 
round  and  round  in  his  agony,  and  finally  sank,  if  not 
to  the  bottom,  yet  quite  deep  enough  to  insure  his 
coming  up  again  most  effectually  drowned. 

"I  have  seen  that  face  before,"  said  Tom  Pippin, 
when  the  body  was  brought  up  to  the  door  of  his  hotel. 
"That's  Cuffs,  the  policeman.  I'll  swear  to  him. 
Does  any  one  know  where  he  lived?" 


208  THE  MAD  ENGLISHMAN 

A  small  pension  some  little  distance  down  the  road 
was  pointed  out  as  the  place  from  whence  the  mad  Eng- 
lishman had  last  been  seen  to  issue ;  and  Tom  imme- 
diately set  out  thither,  with  the  good-natured  intention 
of  breaking  the  sad  news  to  Mrs.  Cuffs  more  tenderly 
than  it  would  probably  be  communicated  by  the  Ital- 
ian boatman  or  the  landlord,  and  with  a  very  decided 
curiosity  to  discover  for  himself  how  far  his  uncle's  re- 
cently-formed suspicions  were  just,  and  whether  or  not 
Mr.  Cuffs  had  been  a  good  man  and  true. 

Mrs.  Cuffs  was  nursing  a  baby.  Of  course  Tom  did 
not  know  one  baby  from  another,  and  was  wholly  un- 
prepared to  swear  that  the  child  which  lay  croaking  in 
the  sickly-looking  woman's  arms  was  his  own  cousin. 
Mrs.  Cuffs  might  have  half  a  dozen  babies  of  her  own, 
for  all  Tom  could  tell ;  but  it  could  do  no  harm,  and 
might  do  a  world  of  good,  to  make  believe  for  once 
that  he  was  very  wise. 

"Aw — Mrs.  Cuffs,  I  presume,"  said  Tom. 

"Some  mistake,  sir,"  replied  the  sickly  woman. 

"By  Jove,  then  it's  aw  your  mistake,  not  mine," 
said  Tom.  "I'll  trouble  you  aw  to  hand  over  that 
baby.  His  mother,  Lady  Appletree,  aw,  wants  him 
back  again." 

Down  went  the  sickly  woman  like  a  shot,  the  baby 
falling  with  her  on  the  floor.  Tom  took  the  child,  and 
held  it,  to  the  best  of  his  belief,  the  right  way  upwards. 
But,  when  the  sickly  woman  came  to  herself,  the  child 
proved  to  be  upside  down  ;  though  Tom  afterwards 
declared  that,  when  the  poor  little  thing  had  been 
righted,  he  couldn't  for  the  life  of  him  see  any  differ- 
ence. 


TAKES  A   PLUNGE.  209 

Mrs.  Cuffs  found  it  hard  to  keep  up  appearances, 
after  having  fainted  straight  away  at  the  first  breath  of 
an  accusation  laid  against  her.  Nevertheless,  she  be- 
gan some  plausible  tale,  which  she  and  the  detective 
had  rehearsed  together,  and  which  her  visitor  took  for 
what  it  was  worth. 

Then  Tom  had  his  tale  to  tell ;  and,  before  the  tell- 
ing of  it  was  fairly  over,  the  woman  was  at  his  feet, 
confessing  the  whole  plot  from  the  very  first,  weeping 
for  her  own  and  her  husband's  guilt,  weeping  for  the 
mother  whom  she  had  robbed,  and  praying  earnestly 
that  Tom  would  deal  gently  with  her,  remembering 
that  her  own  breasts  had  fed  the  child. 

Tom  sent  her  to  Milan,  where  she  declared  that  she 
could  earn  for  herself  a  living  in  some  honest  trade; 
and,  having  engaged  an  Italian  maiden  to  look  after 
the  baby,  he  set  off  at  once  for  England,  traveling 
with  the  utmost  speed  that  he  thought  an  infant  of  nine 
months  might  safely  bear.  On  the  road  he  examined 
a  pocket-book  which  he  had  found  in  the  policeman's 
room,  and  which  he  rightly  judged  to  contain  impor- 
tant papers.  Among  them  was  the  document  drawn  up 
in  the  cottage  at  Withycombe,  the  signature  attached 
to  which  set  Tom  shuddering  as  he  read  it.  "The 
villain!"  muttered  Tom;  "the  unmitigated  villain! 
He  shall  break  stones  at  Portland  for  the  rest  of  his 
life,  by  George  he  shall !  No,  he  sha'n't — for  the  sake 
of  that  poor  boy!  Well — I'll  keep  it  to  myself,  and 
think  it  over." 

Tom  called  at  the  house  in  Bolton  Street,  May-Fair, 
in  case  his  uncle  should  happen  to  be  in  town;  and 
there  he  found  the  earl,  thoroughly  enjoying  his  own 

14 


2IO 


THE   MAD   ENGLISHMAN 


society,  and  solacing  his  loneliness  with  salmon  and 
champagne. 

"Aw,"  said  Tom,  announcing  himself,  and  leaving 
the  Italian  maiden  with  her  infant  in  the  cab,  "aw — 
thought  I  should  find  you  here." 

"Can't  say  I  thought  I  should  find  yoit  here,"  re- 
turned the  earl.  "  Where  upon  earth  have  you  been, 
sir?  and  what  have  you  got  to  say  for  yourself,  after 
making  fools  of  the  whole  lot  of  us  down  at  Crook- 
leigh?" 

"Aw — it  was  rather  rum,  wasn't  it?  But  look  here 
— I'll  aw  make  a  bargain.  I'm  doosid  hungry;  and, 
if  you'll  give  me  some  dinner,  I'll  give  you  your  boy." 
Then  Tom  fetched  in  the  Italian  maiden,  and  the  earl 
went  mad  with  joy. 

By  the  first  train  in  the  morning  they  ran  down  to- 
gether to  Withycombe,  where  Lady  Appletree  had 
been  solacing  her  loneliness  with  draughts  from  the 
black  bottle  beneath  her  chair,  to  an  extent  which 
threatened  to  bring  the  days  of  her  ladyship's  pilgrim- 
age on  earth  to  a  swift  and  sudden  end.  "  She's  a 
good  woman,"  said  the  earl,  "and  I  haven't  a  fault  to 
find — except  one.  She  does  drink  most  confoundedly. 
She'll  be  as  drunk  as  a  fish  when  we  get  down  there." 
Sure  enough  she  was ;  but  the  baby  brought  her  senses 
back  again  ;  and  she  put  away  the  bottle  for  two  whole 
days. 

"  Tom,"  said  the  earl,  "  you  are  the  best  fellow  that 
ever  breathed,  and  you  deserve  to  be  made  free.  I'll 
pay  your  debts,  old  boy,  and  give  you  an  allowance, 
if  you  will  promise  to  settle  down  quietly  at  Ribstone 
and  live  within    your  means.     You  know,  of  course, 


TAKES  A   PLUNGE.  211 

that  poor  young  Crookleigh  died  last  month,  and  the 
duke  a  fortnight  afterwards?" 

"  No  !"  said  Tom  in  astonishment ;  "  I  never  heard 
a  word  about  either  of  them." 

"Ah,  well — they  are  both  dead  ;  and  Lady  Maria  is 
the  richest  woman  in  England.  You  could  have  her 
now,  Tom,  if  you  chose.  But  I  say,  Tom,  next  time 
you  change  your  mind  in  the  middle  of  the  service, 
you  must  not  tell  the  parson  that  you'll  be  'blest.'  It 
is  not  good  manners,  Tom,  and  it  is  highly  improper, 
too.  The  bishop  was  very  much  hurt ;  he  was,  in- 
deed." And  the  old  man  roared  with  laughter  at  his 
recollection  of  the  scene. 

"Sir  John  been  here  lately?"  asked  Tom,  opening 
the  way  for  intelligence  about  the  one  of  whom  he 
most  wished  to  hear. 

"Cut  me  dead,"  replied  the  earl;  "but  I  expect 
he'll  come  round  in  time.  Cut  me  dead,  the  proud 
old  beggar!  Just  like  a  Scotchman!  And  what  do 
you  suppose  he  cut  me  for?" 

"Haven't  the  most  distant  notion,"  said  Tom. 

"Because,  when  old  Rampion  died,  a  week  or  two 
ago,  I  gave  that  poor  beggar  Toyle  the  living ;  and 
now  he  is  going  to  marry  Edith  Montgomery;  and 
Sir  John  swears  it  is  all  my  fault. — Why,  what  ever  is 
the  matter  with  you,  old  fellow?" 

"Not  much,"  said  Tom,  recovering  himself.  "You 
hit  me  rather  hard,  that  is  all."  And  then  he  told  the 
earl  his  story. 

The  earl  gave  him  such  comfort  as  he  could,  and 
scut  him  into  Dumplington  to  arrange  financial  matters 
with    his  lawyer.      Mr.   Teasel  and  Tom   Pippin   were 


212  THE  MAD  ENGLISHMAN,  ETC. 

closeted  yet  once  again  for  three  whole  hours ;  and 
when  the  interview  was  over,  Tom  and  his  man  of  busi- 
ness did  not  shake  hands. 

The  Dumplington  gossips  were  in  luck.  During  the 
space  of  less  than  two  years  an  earl  had  married  his 
cook ;  a  baby  lord  had  been  mysteriously  stolen  and 
mysteriously  brought  home ;  a  wedding  in  high  life 
had  been  interrupted  at  the  altar  itself;  the  very  gram- 
mar-school had  contributed  its  tragedy;  and  a  marquis 
and  a  duke  had  died.  Now  there  burst  upon  the  an- 
cient city  yet  another  sensational  report.  Mr.  Peter 
Teasel,  of  the  Close,  attorney-at-law,  had  sailed,  as  it 
were  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  for  Melbourne,  with 
his  wife  and  all  his  family,  excepting  only  the  eldest 
boy,  who  was  going  to  a  private  tutor  to  be  crammed 
for  Woolwich,  at  the  expense  of  an  unknown  friend. 


COALS   OF  FIRE. 


213 


CHAPTER    XIII. 


COALS    OF   FIRE. 


When  Tom  Pippin  had  concluded  his  financial  ar- 
rangements with  the  lawyer,  he  did  not  visit,  as  usual, 
his  friends  at  the  schoolhouse — for  in  truth  he  had  no 
friends  there.  The  forty  stripes  inflicted  upon  one 
pupil,  and  the  fatal  accident  which  had  befallen  an- 
other, proved  damaging  to  the  prosperity  of  the  farm. 
A  terrible  reaction  set  in  against  the  excellent  school- 
master ;  boy  after  boy  was,  on  one  pretext  or  another, 
quietly  withdrawn  from  Mrs.  Goggs's  motherly  pro- 
tection ;  and  on  the  arrival  of  the  second  quarter-day 
after  the  receipt  of  his  valentine  the  reverend  gentle- 
man's once  flourishing  household  consisted  of  himself 
and  his  devoted  wife;  Goggs  major,  minor,  and  mini- 
mus, with  their  two  small  sisters;  an  invaluable  cook; 
two  willing  domestics;  a  much-enduring  shoeblack; 
and  twelve  founder's  boys. 

Mr.  Goggs  had  come  to  poverty,  and  did  not  like  it. 
It  was  a  picturesque  and  useful  theme  for  a  discourse 
on  Sunday  ;  but  on  Monday  and  Tuesday  he  preferred 
contemplating  its  beneficial  results  in  the  case  of  other 
people.  The  profits  of  two  years'  farming,  even  on 
the  most  economical  principles,  could  not  be  very 
enormous ;  the  official  salary  of  live  hundred  pounds 


2i4  COALS   OF  FIRE. 

would  scarcely  suffice  to  keep  the  establishment  going ; 
and  Mr.  Goggs  was  poor. 

His  straitened  circumstances,  however,  might  have 
been  more  cheerfully  borne,  but  for  a  new  calamity  of 
which  they  were  the  cause.  The  invalid  wife  with 
nerves  unstrung  was  beginning  to  bully  him.  She 
made  him  eat  cold  mutton  for  breakfast,  and  would 
not  allow  him  a  study  fire.  She  sold  the  produce  of 
his  garden — pears,  strawberries,  grapes,  and  all.  She 
tied  up  his  asparagus  in  bundles  before  his  very  eyes, 
and  sent  it  to  the  market,  together  with  bushels  of  nice 
green  peas,  and  lettuces  innumerable,  and  cucumbers 
by  the  yard.  She  scolded  him  in  the  face  of  the  very 
founder's  boys,  and  told  him  he  ought  to  be  ashamed 
of  himself  for  coming  to  dinner  in  a  pair  of  rusty  cop- 
per-colored trousers  and  an  old  green  school-coat. 
And  Mr.  Goggs  did  not  like  it.  It  weighed  down  his 
spirits.  It  crippled  his  academic  energies.  It  pros- 
trated him  utterly.  He  set  impositions  and  forgot  to 
ask  for  them.  He  had  not  even  the  heart  to  reproduce 
his  mild  and  venerable  jokes  in  school. 

With  the  single  exception  of  the  Special  Correspond- 
ent, who  is  certainly  unapproachable  in  his  own  pecu- 
liar line,  there  is  nobody  who  makes  such  abortive 
attempts  to  be  funny  as  the  schoolmaster.  Virgil, 
Horace,  Euclid,  the  Latin  grammar — all  contribute 
their  well-known  series  as  regularly  as  the  lesson  comes 
round.  It  is  an  excusable  weakness.  Hearing  boys 
construe  is  dull  work ;  and  the  man  who  omits  to  let 
off  a  joke,  at  a  time  when  his  listeners  are  bound  to 
laugh  at  it,  misses  a  great  opportunity.  For  the  witti- 
cisms of  the  Special  Correspondent  it  is  perhaps  some- 


COALS   OF  FIRE. 


215 


what  more  difficult  to  apologize.  This  gentleman  does 
not  merely  improve  the  occasion,  as  the  schoolmaster 
does,  by  fertilizing  such  facetious  thoughts  as  the  sub- 
ject before  him  chances  to  supply.  He  rushes  head- 
long into  wit ;  determined  to  let  you  see,  at  the  very 
outset,  that  you  are  going  to  be  amused.  He  boldly 
prefaces  a  sermon  of  six  columns  and  a  half  with  a  text 
from  Thackeray  or  Dickens,  expanding  the  idea  thus 
happily  borrowed  with  a  colloquial  sprightliness,  which 
shows  you  at  once  what  a  jovial  larky  sort  of  fellow  he 
must  be.  "It  is  one  of  the  Wellers,  I  forget  which, 
who  says,  Nobody  ever  seed  a  dead  donkey."  You 
are,  of  course,  much  interested  in  being  informed  that, 
though  the  Special  Correspondent  cannot  just  now 
remember  which  of  the  Wellers  it  was,  yet  upon  the 
whole  he  knows  his  Pickwick  tolerably  well.  What 
perhaps  you  fail  immediately  to  apprehend  is  the  con- 
nection between  the  text  and  the  discourse  which  fol- 
lows. Another  gentleman  draws  upon  his  recollections 
of  Punch,  illustrating  his  graphic  account  of  a  sortie, 
or  a  charge  of  cavalry,  with  one  of  John  Leech's  draw- 
ings. "  Like  the  urchin  who  threw  a  stone  at  a  win- 
dow, and  then  said,  Please,  sir,  it  wasn't  me;  so  the 
French  troops,  etc.  etc."  Here  again,  though  to 
some  extent  you  miss  the  point  of  the  reminiscence, 
you  are,  nevertheless,  gratified  by  the  discovery  that 
your  entertainer  is  of  a  youthful  turn  of  mind ;  and 
you  admit,  as  a  matter  of  bare  justice,  that  a  write* 
who  cannot  raise  a  smile  by  any  pleasantries  of  his 
own  does  wisely  when  he  calls  to  his  aid  the  historical 
pleasantries  of  other  people.  In  recounting,  however, 
his  personal  adventures,  the  Special  Correspondent  has 


216  COALS   OF  FIRE. 

his  subject  more  completely  in  hand.  There  is  nothing 
forced  about  his  witticisms  then.  He  has  no  need  to 
consult  his  Pickwick,  or  recall  a  sketch  from  the  inex- 
haustible Punch.  He  has  plenty  to  tell,  and  he  is 
thoroughly  at  home  in  the  telling  of  it.  "I  had  just 
shaken  hands  with  the  crown  prince,  when  I  heard  my 
name  called  out  in  a  cheery  voice  ;  and,  looking  round, 
I  recognized  the  Duke  of  Lancashire."  In  such  a  case 
as  this  we  perceive  at  once  the  full  significance  of  the 
fact  recorded ;  we  shrink  back  into  our  easy-chairs, 
abashed  at  our  own  utter  unworthiness  ;  and  we  peruse 
with  more  than  wonted  reverence  the  journal  wherein 
we  put  our  trust,  whose  Special  Correspondent  shakes 
hands  with  crown  princes  and  is  hailed  by  the  Duke  of 
Lancashire  in  cheery  tone. 

Mr.  Goggs,  however,  was  funny  no  longer.  He 
drooped  and  languished,  and  pined  aAvay.  He  so  pal- 
pably neglected  his  work  that  the  trustees  of  Woodruff's 
Charity  carried  a  vote  of  confidence  against  him  ;  ac- 
cepted his  resignation  of  the  farm  ;  bestowed  upon  his 
three  sons,  in  consideration  of  their  father's  services, 
appointments  as  founder's  boys;  and  obtained  for  the 
schoolmaster  himself  the  office  of  chaplain,  and  in- 
structor of  half-witted  youth,  at  the  Dumplingshire 
County  Asylum. 

Here  Mr.  Goggs  did  his  best  to  go  mad  himself. 
He  would  neither  eat  nor  drink ;  and  his  wife,  with 
her  bitter  reproaches,  would  not  let  him  sleep.  All 
night  long  she  taunted  him  with  his  self-inflicted  ruin  ; 
and  he,  poor  wretch,  had  not  life  enough  left  in  him 
for  a  retort  or  a  counter  reproach,  even  in  its  most  im- 
becile form.     The  story  of  his  desolation  was  told,  in 


COALS   OF  FIRE.  2Iy 

thrilling  words,  wherever  Dumplington  matron  en- 
countered Dumplington  maid  ;  and  Harry  Northcote, 
hearing  of  it  in  the  Christmas  holidays  when  he  came 
home  from  his  new  school,  formed  half  a  dozen  im- 
practicable schoolboy  plots  for  his  unfortunate  cousin's 
relief. 

"I  was  sure  that  you  would  want  to  do  something 
for  him,"  said  the  captain,  laughing  at  the  wildness  of 
Harry's  schemes,  "and  so  I  put  off  doing  anything 
myself  until  the  holidays.  But  you  know,  my  dear 
boy,  you  can't  upset  a  man's  will,  and  take  half  of 
what  he  leaves  you  and  pour  the  other  half  bodily  into 
another  man's  lap." 

"But  that's  just  what  I  want  to  do,  all  the  same," 
said  Harry.  "  I  have  quite  made  up  my  mind  that  he 
shall  have  the  twenty  thousand  pounds;  and  surely, 
papa,  it  might  be  managed  somehow." 

"He  is  welcome  to  it,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned," 
said  the  captain,  "  but  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  he  will 
take  it  from  either  you  or  me ;  and,  what  is  more,  I 
don't  see  how  we  are  to  offer  it,  without  getting  into 
some  frightful  mess  with  the  lawyers." 

The  lawyers,  however,  proved  reasonable,  and  were 
graciously  pleased  to  permit  that  Harry  should  spend 
his  own  money  as  he  pleased.  It  appeared  that  the 
legacy  had  been  paid  by  old  Mr.  Barroll's  executors  to 
Captain  Northcote,  as  guardian  of  the  legatee;  and 
that  if  the  captain  chose  to  present  his  young  ward 
with  twenty  thousand  pounds  during  his  minority,  no- 
body could  prevent  him.  Of  course  he  had  no  legal 
right  to  do  so,  and  Harry,  on  coming  of  age,  might 
make  him  pay  it  all  over  again ;  but  the  father  would 


218  COALS   OF  FIRE. 

take  his  chance  of  this,  without  any  very  serious  mis- 
givings as  to  the  claims  which  might  be  made  upon 
him  hereafter  by  the  young  heir.  So  Harry,  accom- 
panied by  his  darling  Grab,  who  was  spending  his 
Christmas  at  Aleworth,  rode  off  to  the  asylum  and  in- 
quired for  the  Rev.  Mr.  Goggs. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Goggs  was  in  a  bad  way.  His  gar- 
ments were  scarcely  decent,  and  his  person  was  osten- 
tatiously unclean.  The  copper-colored  trousers  and 
green  school-coat  had  been  pitiable  enough  ;  but  Harry 
could  not  remember  when  he  had  ever  seen  his  relative 
in  such  a  plight  as  he  presented  now.  His  room  was  a 
den  of  discomforts,  and  his  young  visitor  could  hardly 
breathe  for  the  foulness  of  the  air. 

"Please,  sir,"  began  Harry,  feeling  his  way  to 
business,  and  recollecting  something  of  the  school- 
master's intense  vanity,  "please,  sir,  I  have  come  to 
beg  your  pardon  for  giving  you  so  much  trouble  at 
school.  I  am  awfully  sorry,  really  I  am.  I  should  not 
play  such  a  lot  of  tricks  if  I  could  have  my  time  over 
again." 

"Have  you  supplicated  pardon  from  on  high?" 
asked  Mr.  Goggs,  turning  his  eyes  toward  heaven  with 
a  gesture  so  devout,  that  Harry  thought  he  must  surely 
be  going  up  on  high  to  receive  the  supplication. 

"Well,  no,  sir — upon  my  word  I  haven't,"  replied 
the  boy,  who  was  not  quite  prepared  to  let  his  penitence 
go  the  length  of  a  religious  exercise. 

"Then  —  let  us  pray!"  said  Mr.  Goggs;  "let 
us " 

"Really,  I  am  afraid  I  sha'n't  have  time  to-day," 
interrupted  Harry.     "  My  father  wants  me  to  get  back 


COALS   OF  FIRE. 


219 


to  luncheon,  and  I  have  something  particular  to  say. 
You  won't  be  offended,  sir,  will  you?" 

"Well,  what  is  it?"  inquired  Mr.  Goggs,  who  looked 
as  offended  as  a  man  need  look  already. 

"I  want  you  to  do  me  a  favor,  sir,"  said  Harry, 
blushing,  and  wondering  how  ever  he  should  get  over 
the  ground  with  a  man  who  came  such  a  very  little  way 
to  meet  him. 

"  Well,  Northcote,  I  am  sure  I  don't  know.  I  can 
make  no  promises.  You  must  be  aware  that  your  be- 
havior at  school  was  not  such  as  to  give  you  any  claim 
upon  my  regard.  Your  idleness,  and  stubbornness, 
and  ingratitude  to  Mrs.  Goggs  and  myself  were  alto- 
gether reprehensible  ;  and  I  can  only  express  my  sur- 
prise that  you  should  have  had  the  hardihood  to  intrude 
yourself  upon  me." 

"  Intrude,  indeed  !"  said  Mrs.  Goggs,  sneaking  into 
the  room.  "I'll  intrude  him!  What  do  you  mean, 
Northcote,  by  your  impudence  in  coming  here?  If 
Mr.  Goggs  had  an  atom  of  spirit  in  him,  he  would 
kick  you  out  at  the  door.  Now,  sir,  just  you  march, 
and  your  precious  dog  after  you." 

"  Grab  won't  hurt  anybody,  ma'am,"  said  Harry, 
apologetically.  "  I  told  him  to  stop  outside  with  the 
pony." 

"And  /told  somebody  to  bring  him  inside,  and 
give  the  poor  thing  a  plate  of  bones,"  returned  Mrs. 
Goggs;  "and  all  I  can  say  is,  that  I  hope  he'll  like 
them." 

"  Why,  you  don't  mean  to  say "  began  Harry. 

"  I  mean  to  say,  young  man,  that  we  don't  want 
your   company,    nor   your   dog's    either.      You   have 


220  COALS   OF  FIRE. 

brought  me  and  Mr.  Goggs  to  ruin,  by  your  disgrace- 
ful conduct  at  school.  You  are  strutting  about  with  a 
fine  fortune,  which  belongs  by  rights  to  us,  and  not  to 
you ;  and  the  sooner  you  make  yourself  scarce,  the 
better." 

But  Harry  had  made  himself  scarce,  long  before  the 
matron's  rebuke  came  to  an  end.  There  was  some- 
thing in  the  woman's  manner  when  she  spoke  of  the 
plate  of  bones,  which  set  the  boy  suspecting,  incredi- 
ble as  the  notion  was,  that  she  had  done  a  mischief  to 
his  dear  dog.  He  rushed  down-stairs,  therefore,  and 
into  the  yard  where  he  had  tied  up  his  pony,  but  Grab 
was  certainly  not  there.  He  opened  every  door  which 
seemed  to  lean  into  the  building,  but  his  favorite  was 
nowhere  to  be  seen.  At  last,  attracted  by  strange, 
unearthly  cries,  he  ran  down  a  passage,  and  into  a 
dreary-looking  hall,  where. a  score  of  half-witted  lads 
were  grinning  and  croaking  over  a  sight  which  a  score 
of  devils,  if  they  had  been  but  sane,  could  hardly  have 
stood  still  to  see.  The  dog,  swollen  and  shrunk  by 
turns,  as  he  writhed  in  his  agony,  with  the  yellow  foam 
gushing  out  of  his  mouth,  and  his  great,  red  tongue  wag-, 
ging  itself  from  side  to  side ;  the  dog — his  dog — his  dear, 
dear  Grab — lay  dying  on  the  floor,  lashing  the  boards 
with  his  feathery  tail,  and  swinging  himself  round  from 
posture  to  posture  with  cries  of  torment  that  could  not  be 
endured.  Harry  flung  himself  on  the  ground,  and  threw 
his  arms  around  the  creature's  neck,  as  if  he  would 
share  his  torment  with  him  ;  but  the  torment  was  over 
now.  Grab  tried  to  lick  his  master,  but  the  tongue 
would  not  move ;  tried  to  give  a  paw,  but  the  paw  hung 
stiffly  down  ;  looked  all  his  undying  love  into  the  boy's 


COALS  OF  FIRE.  221 

face,  as  he  wished  him,  after  his  doggish  fashion,  a  last 
good-by  ;  and  went  to  that  happy  place  in  the  world 
unseen  where  the  spirits  of  good  dogs  dwell. 

The  workhouse-master  lent  a  horse  and  cart,  and  a 
workhouse-man  to  drive  it  as  far  as  Aleworth ;  and 
Harry,  wild  with  grief,  rode  his  pony  alongside.  Be- 
fore he  started,  however,  he  went  again  into  Mr.  Goggs's 
room,  and  made  him  understand,  through  his  convul- 
sive sobbings,  what  the  real  intention  of  his  visit  had 
been.  "It  is  all  yours,"  said  the  boy.  "I  sha'n't 
ever  touch  it.  It's  invested  somewhere  or  other,  my 
father  says ;  but  they  will  tell  you  all  about  it  at  the 
bank,  and  you  can  have  it  whenever  you  like." 

"Very  right  and  proper  feeling,"  said  the  school- 
master, patronizingly.  "It  is  a  satisfaction  to  me,  my 
dear  Northcote,  to  see  that  your  heart  is  changed,  and 
that  you  have  profited  by  the  lessons  in  godliness  which 
you  learned  from  me  at  Dumplington.  I  am  sorry  that 
your  dog  was  poisoned  by  mistake ;  but  I  have  no 
doubt  that  Mrs.  Goggs  will  get  you  another." 

Much  comforted  by  this  assurance,  and  by  the  gra- 
cious mode  in  which  the' schoolmaster  had  received  his 
gift,  Harry  rode  home,  scarcely  ever  taking  his  eyes  off 
the  body  of  his  murdered  friend.  At  the  lodge-gates 
he  met  Tom  Pippin,  who  fairly  tumbled  off  his  saddle 
at  the  sight  of  Grab  lying  dead  in  a  cart. 

"  I  have  seen  your  father,"  said  Tom ;  "and  he  has 
told  me  all  about  this  legacy  business;  and  I  won't  say 
to  you,  Harry,  what  I  told  him  in  return.  They  have 
been  very  kind  to  you,  Harry,  both  of  them.  They 
were  very  kind  to  your  dearest  schoolboy  friend,  and 
now  they  have  been  very  particularly  kind  to  your  dog. 


222  COALS   OF  FIRE. 

You  are  quite  right  to  let  them  see  that  you  are  not 
ungrateful.  Well,  my  boy,  Tom  Pippin  doesn't  brag 
much  about  his  feelings,  and  it  isn't  very  often  that 
Tom  Pippin  has  been  seen  to  blub ;  but  if  Tom  Pippin 
stands  here  much  longer,  with  Harry  Northcote  on  one 
side  of  him,  and  Grab,  murdered  in  cold  blood,  on  the 
other,  why,  somebody  will  have  to " 

What  somebody  would  have  to  do  did  not,  however, 
immediately  appear;  for  Tom,  after  shaking  hands 
warmly  with  his  friend,  and  patting  yet  once  again  the 
dog's  shaggy  coat,  scrambled  up  into  his  saddle  and 
rode  hastily  away,  the  tears  streaming  down  his  cheeks 
as  they  had  not  done  since  he  was  a  little  child. 

But  Tom  had  some  more  crying  to  do  before  he  went 
to  bed  that  night.  When  he  reached  home,  he  found 
a  messenger  from  Crookleigh  Castle,  waiting  to  drive 
him  over  to  see  Lady  Maria  Bent  before  she  died.  The 
poor  idiot  had  never  quite  recovered  from  the  shock  of 
Tom's  eccentric  behavior  on  her  bridal  morning.  She 
felt  it  from  the  very  first  more  deeply  than  she  per- 
mitted any  one  to  know  ;  and  a  serious  illness  which 
seized  her  in  the  autumn  had  produced  a  succession  of 
fits,  so  violent  and  so  exhausting  that  recovery  of 
strength  was  utterly  impossible.  The  fits  had  left  her 
now ;  but  when  Tom  reached  her  bedside,  and  gazed 
with  horror  and  self-reproach  at  a  ruin  which  his  own 
thoughtlessness  had  made,  she  was  so  intensely  weak 
that  she  could  scarcely  summon  breath  enough  to 
whisper  to  him  her  last  few  words. 

"Don't  cry,  Tom,"  she  said,  as  Tom  flung  himself 
on  his  knees  and  burst  into  tears.  "Mine  has  not 
been  such  a  happy  life  as  to  make  my  friends  wish  it 


COALS   OF  FIFE.  223 

might  be  spun  out  any  longer.  I've  been  a  mistake 
down  here,  Tom.  I  shall  do  better  where  I  am  going. 
Oh,  Tom !  you  shouldn't  have  done  it  before  such  a  lot 
of  people.  But,  bless  you,  Tom!  I  didn't  care.  Well, 
it  is  all  over  now.  And  I  have  left  you  all  the  money, 
Tom,  every  scrap  of  it.  And  you  must,  keep  it  in 
remembrance  of  my  great,  great  love — for  no  one 
ever  loved  as  I  have  loved  you.  Don't  go  horse- 
racing  with  it,  Tom.  I  want  you  to  be  kind  to  the 
people  here,  and  look  after  them  yourself,  and  not 
pay  some  fellow  two  thousand  pounds  a  year  to  rob 
you  and  humbug  you.  And  I  should  like  to  have  my 
schools  kept  up,  Tom,  and  some  churches  built  where 
they  are  wanted.  Ah,  Tom,  there's  a  deal  to  be  done, 
if  you  will  only  stop  at  home  and  do  it.  Good-by, 
Tom.  I  think  I  may  ask  you  to  kiss  me  now,  Tom. 
Good-by.  I  sha'n't  forget  you  where  I  am  going. 
Give  me  one  kiss,  and  then  I'll  go." 

So  he  kissed  her;  and,  as  he  kissed  her,  angels  came 
down  and  carried  the  poor,  misshapen  dwarf  away  to  a 
land  where  the  crooked  shall  be  made  straight  again, 
and  ugliness  in  man  or  woman  shall  be  no  more  counted 
as  a  crime. 


the  end. 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the 
date  stamped  below. 


last 


10M-1J-50  2555  470 


REMINGTON    RAND    INC.  20 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    OOO  371  924    2 


